A prince of lovers

IT was in obedience to a very natural prompting that in his walks about the city Ludovic’s feet should be inevitably turned in the direction of the palace. Perhaps he hoped—of course he did—that chance might give him a glimpse of that provoking beauty, Princess Ruperta. The fascination was intensified by the strange situation in which he had met her. For it showed an underlying stratum of a far different and warmer nature beneath the hard, frozen surface that the world saw and noted, and, try as it would, could make no impression upon. So! Princess Cold-heart was human after all. He laughed as he spoke the words in his solitary ramble. Human? yes. But what chance had the humanity, the girl’s real feelings, to expand and flourish enmeshed in the rigid formality and etiquette, in the killing monotony of a German Court? And under the eye, benign and relentless, of that inscrutable, busy state-machine, the Chancellor Rollmar, what play-room could there be for a girl’s spirits and enjoyment of life? Small wonder, he thought, if she broke bounds, careless because ignorant of danger. A girl of high-spirited temperament is not to be completely repressed even by an astute and autocratic Minister. Does not rebellion thrive on oppression?

Ludovic had come to Waldenthor well provided with credentials. Only a night or two after his arrival he had attended a Court ball; and it was from his sight of the Princess on that occasion that he had been able to recognise her on the evening of her adventure. He was free of the Palace grounds, but after the affair at the fortune-teller’s, he, from motives of delicacy, refrained from walking in them. He would not seem to take advantage of his service by forcing himself upon the notice of the Princess. To hover on the outskirts, though, was a greater temptation than he, perhaps, could resist. And at last the hovering grew so tantalising that he told himself there could be no harm in taking a short road to the city by the broad walk which ran through the royal park. His way took him within a few paces of the King’s chapel. The tones of the organ in a subdued grandeur trembled out through the effigied windows. The witchery of the music, united with the glamour of the place, hallowed by romance ever since the days of chivalry, had an arresting effect. Ludovic stopped, took off his hat and leaning against a great elm, gave himself up to the entrancement of the moment.

Like a subtle spell the music stole out into the woodland till the quivering of the leaves seemed hushed by the charm; the place became fairyland, but the haunt of fairies of flesh and blood with souls for life and love, for dreams and hopes sweetening to fulfilment. If heaven was suggested there, it was heaven on earth.

There was a pause in the playing, but the spell which seemed to hold the listener was not broken. He remained motionless in his abstraction. Then the music floated out again in a lovely Andante of Scarlatti’s. The dreamy look turned to animation, he must drink to the full of that divine melody; he went forward on tip-toe to a little door which stood ajar, pushed it gently open and stood raptly breathing in the glorious strain which, rising and falling, flooded the chapel as with an angel’s song.

As the last notes trembled away along the groined roof Ludovic stole forward. The organ burst forth again. From where he stood a screen hid the player; by advancing a little farther he could see past it. Quietly he moved on, still the keyboard was hidden by a low curtain. But he saw something else which rewarded and at the same time rebuked his temerity, a girl working the handle of the bellows. It was Countess Minna, the Princess’s companion. Half sitting on a stool, she with a pretty suggestion of boredom was giving, as occasion called for, a casual and now and then an impatient pull at the handle which projected like a bowsprit before her. One hand grasped this, with the other she held up a book, but the necessity of not keeping her eyes too long off the leaden indicator must have made reading a somewhat tantalising pleasure. She would give a slow mechanical pull or two at the lever, then presently glancing up and seeing the wind nearly gone she would take both hands and giving a sufficient number of vicious tugs to bring the lead to its lowest point, she would return to her book. It was at one of these more energetic pumpings that the intruder’s presence caught her eye. She started and her face lengthened into an expression of humorous, half scandalized astonishment. This distraction lasted so long that the lead crept up unnoticed and the wind gave out bringing the melody to an abrupt and wheezy halt.

“Minna!” The Princess’s voice only confirmed the certainty Ludovic had felt as to the player.

“Pardon!” Minna energetically seized the handle and gave several vigorous pulls. “My book was so exciting that I forgot.”

The melody rose again, the absorbing book lay on the floor, and for a while the bellows received a pretty girl’s full, almost feverish, attention.

Presently she looked again at Ludovic and made a comic expression of disgust. He stood irresolute, telling himself that he ought to go, yet yielding to the temptation to linger. The girl’s facial suggestion was now supplemented, after a vehement sending down of the indicator, by a pantomime of weariness. There must have been an object in these signals, yet Ludovic did not take the hint. So Minna, abandoning vagueness, plainly beckoned to him, making signs that he should take her place at the bellows. The invitation could scarcely be disregarded. He came forward and took his position by the lever, while the girl slipped away and settling herself on a more comfortable bench, avidiously resumed her exciting story.

For about half an hour the music continued, Ludovic gravely keeping to his work at the bellows, and Minna, save for an occasional sly upward glance, seeming absorbed in her book. There were breaks in the playing between the ending of one piece and the beginning of another. In one interval of silence, as Ludovic stood waiting for the organ to swell out again, he looked up and saw the Princess standing before him. His involuntary glance at her face told him nothing. He bowed low.

“Pardon, Princess,” he said soberly, “the Countess was tired and I ventured to take her place.”

Minna had sprung up and came forward with a look of mingled apprehension and sly enjoyment of the situation.

“It is true, Highness,” she corroborated. “My arms began to ache and my book was so exciting that I asked Herr von Bertheim to blow till I had rested and the duel was over. One cannot blow the organ properly when one is in a state of terrific suspense.”

The Princess’s face gave no indication of how she took the situation.

“It is perhaps more a man’s work,” she said coldly. “I am obliged to Herr von Bertheim. I did not know he was in the chapel.”

Still no sign whether his presence gave her offence or not.

“I was passing down the Broad Walk when the music stopped me and drew me in,” he explained. “I had no idea, until I saw the Countess, that the player was your Highness.”

“It is perhaps an unusual thing,” she returned with a touch of bitterness, “to find a person in my position cultivating an art. I do not know whether it is one of the things we are bidden to leave to the less exalted, and not meddle with. Your ignorance can scarcely be blamed, sir.”

“I cannot blame it, Princess, unless my presence has given you offence.”

“That ought never to be,” she returned quickly, “seeing how welcome it once has been.”

“I could never presume on that chance service,” he said simply.

“No.” She spoke abstractedly, mechanically. Minna had fidgetted away behind the screen to the door, perhaps on the watch. “That makes it all the more acceptable,” the Princess added in the same distant tone, a tone which impelled him to reply.

“I take the hint, Highness.”

He half turned away, when the murmur of her voice recalled him.

“You need not take more than is meant to be given,” she said, and there was a sweetness in her tone he had never heard before. She gave a quick glance to where Minna stood, and then added, “If I seem far less grateful than an”—she gave a little shrug—“an ordinary woman would be you must not impute the churlishness to me but to my position. It is one of the attributes of royalty to be above the common feelings of the outside world.” The words seemed forced from her, the vent of a grievance, long resented, ever dwelt on. The situation was but an opportunity not the cause of its expression.

“I never could dream of imputing anything but graciousness to your Highness,” Ludovic protested eagerly. “I have no right here, I know: but being free of the Court I ventured to cross the park on my way home. Then the music caught my ear and I came in, thinking to listen without being seen.”

She was looking away, now her glance fell on him. “You come to Court?” she asked in a tone that was scarcely indifferent and yet tantalisingly vague.

“I had the honour to be present at the Hof-Ball last week.”

“Ah, I wondered——”

He understood that she was thinking of his recognition of her at the fortune-teller’s. His next words seemed surprisingly bold.

“Your Highness often plays here? Is it too much to ask to be allowed to officiate as organ-blower again?”

A little hardening of the Princess’s face told him that his temerity was resented. She gave him no answer. “Minna!” she called, “Come, dear; it is late.”

But before Minna could reach them he had spoken again.

“Pardon, Highness,” he said with great restraint yet urgently. “You have not forbidden me.”

But she spoke no word to him again. “Come, dear,” she said, linking her arm in Minna’s, and so they went across the chancel to the royal entrance leading by a covered way to the palace. He stood looking after them hoping for what he knew was beyond hope. Minna opened the door and the Princess passed out of sight without a backward look. Minna glanced round with an inscrutable laugh.