The Kings of the East: A Romance of the Near Future

“So!” murmured Cyril to himself, in the long-drawn, meditative German fashion, as he translated the cipher. “Then the battle is beginning in earnest. That is a smart dodge of yours, my dear Baron, to set Scythia on our track, knowing that we can’t hope to bring the matter home to you. I suppose the English papers all revelled in a nice little sensation yesterday. Mr Mansfield!”

Cyril was sitting in the balcony belonging to his appartement in the Hôtel Waldthier at Ludwigsbad, and a young man came hurriedly to the window in answer to his summons. There was nothing in any way remarkable about the new secretary’s appearance—at least to an English eye. Brown-haired and hazel-eyed, tall, broad-shouldered, and carelessly dressed, he would have been passed over at home as “a most ordinary-looking man,” but on the Continent it was his fate to attract attention as a typical Englishman wherever he went.

“Have you found anything in the papers about our business?” Cyril asked him.

“I was just going to bring your Excellency this.” Mansfield tendered a Vindobona evening journal to his employer.

“Just read me the paragraph. And by the way, don’t ‘Excellency’ me in private. The King was good enough to continue me in the use of the title when I left Thracia, but it may be kept for state occasions. And don’t call me ‘sir,’ as you have done once or twice, or it will get about that I am arrogating to myself princely honours. I must ask you to address me as ‘Count,’ if your instinctive veneration for me demands the use of some epithet.”

The reproof was given so genially that it was impossible to take offence, and Mansfield, who had grown very red, returned gradually to his normal colour, and translated the paragraph with very fair fluency:—

Mansfield’s voice dropped when he came to the last word, and he glanced fearfully at Cyril, expecting to find him pained, possibly indignant; but seeing that he was smoking placidly, he took heart of grace.

“I expected this. Are you a thin-skinned person, Mansfield?”

“I don’t think so—I really don’t know,” stammered Mansfield.

“I mean, can you stand being generally cold-shouldered, if not actually cut? Do you yearn for constant communion with your kind?”

“I suppose I could stand being sent to Coventry without whining. Is that the sort of thing?”

“Exactly. If I am not mistaken, that is the fate which will be meted out to you and me for the next few days. If your spirits are liable to give way under it, you had better go home at once.”

“Count!” There was no mistaking the chagrin in the young man’s tone, and Cyril laughed encouragingly.

“That’s all right. I only wanted to prepare you for the worst. Well, shall we take a little stroll? If you are anxious to put my powers of prophecy to the proof, we might pay a few visits.”

The prospect of being turned from the doors of the persons visited did not commend itself to Mansfield, however, and Cyril and he strolled across the bridge and into the tree-shaded Neue Wiese or promenade. The stern regulations in vogue at Ludwigsbad permit an afternoon walk, but do not enforce it, and the gardens and the Königspark were not therefore crowded with Kurgäste, as would be the case a little later n the day. Still, there were a fair number of restless sufferers endeavouring to satisfy their consciences by a feverish activity in lounging up and down, or taking duty drives to points of interest, in company with the faithful relations who had attended them into exile, and Mansfield watched with a painful attention their demeanour towards his employer. He himself had arrived only the day before, and Cyril had carried him off almost immediately to an informal dinner-party at an open-air restaurant, where a little knot of men bearing historic names, and of women famous all over Europe for their beauty, had laughed and talked and jested, as they discussed the unappetising fare allowed them, like members of a very happy, simple-hearted, and united family. The novelty of the occasion had a little intoxicated him, and when the party broke up at nine o’clock it had needed a brisk walk along the Charlottenbad road, and an indulgence in thoughts of Philippa, such as he rarely allowed himself, to enable him to sleep at all. The unexpected friendliness of these great people had been astonishing enough, but it would be nothing compared with a sudden change to coolness, such as Cyril seemed to anticipate. Just as Mansfield, in his thoughts, had reached this point, he saw a carriage approaching in which sat the loveliest and friendliest of the ladies of the evening before. The Countess von Hohenthurm was a celebrated Pannonian beauty, and was commonly considered the haughtiest woman in the empire; but she had taken Mansfield under her wing at the dinner-party, explaining the half-veiled personal allusions with which the conversation was largely sprinkled, and confiding to him various indiscreet revelations respecting notable people then staying or expected at the baths. As she came towards him now, Mansfield raised his hand instinctively towards his hat, but Cyril’s voice at his side said, “Wait. It is possible that the lady has not the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

The idea seemed preposterous, for the Countess, in response to some remark made by the elderly lady who was driving with her, had turned her head in the direction of the two Englishmen, but there was no glance of recognition as her eyes met theirs. Without the movement of a muscle or the slightest change of colour, she looked through them both at the trees behind. It was beyond question that in the world of the Countess von Hohenthurm there existed no such persons as Count Mortimer and his secretary.

“Don’t look so utterly crushed,” said Cyril, giving Mansfield’s arm a gentle shake. “Didn’t I tell you how it would be?”

Mansfield walked on in silence, with compressed lips. Presently they met two of the gentlemen with whom they had dined, but these were so deeply engrossed in conversation as to be unable to recognise them. Next they passed a rustic seat, behind which rose a rock bearing an inscription to the effect that the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim desired to testify to the benefit he had derived from a course of the Ludwigsbad waters. Here there sat a hideous elderly man, of generous proportions, who was laying down the laws of fashion to two or three admiring disciples, with all the confidence to be expected in the recognised arbiter of taste at the baths. He also had been one of the guests of the night before, and Mansfield had conceived an instinctive dislike to him—a dislike which was not now lessened by his putting up an eyeglass, and wondering audibly, in terms of unnecessary emphasis, “Who those fellows might be that looked like Englishmen?”

“Well?” said Cyril, as they passed on; “was I a true prophet?”

“Yes; oh yes. But why—what does it all mean?”

“It means that they believe, or pretend to believe, that we are leagued with the Jews against them, and therefore, very naturally, they feel obliged to mark their disapproval of us.”

“But will it go on? How long will they keep it up?”

“Oh yes, it will go on, for exactly three days and a half. Remember that. Until then, I fear that you and I shall be confined to each other’s society. Pray talk as much as you like. I shall be delighted to listen.”

“I should like to say a word or two to that fellow,” muttered Mansfield, indicating by a backward glance the oracle of fashion.

“I earnestly hope you won’t. In the first place, he would not understand your German, and your righteous indignation would therefore be wasted. In the next, I would rather not kill him if I can help it.”

“Kill him? how?”

“With a sword, my dear youth. Excuse me, but you are really so refreshingly young. Is it beyond your powers of imagination to conceive that if you insulted him he would forthwith challenge me?”

“I can look after my own quarrels, Count,” very haughtily.

“In that case I should very soon have a funeral to look after in the British cemetery,” was the calm reply. “The man is a noted duellist, and you would be at his mercy in two minutes. With me as his antagonist, I will be conceited enough to say, things would be reversed. Since you are so kind as to propose to quarrel with him on my account, perhaps I may be allowed to intimate that I prefer a living secretary to a dead one.”

Mansfield, with an embarrassed laugh, yielded the point, although he did not succeed in arriving all at once at his employer’s pitch of philosophy. As they walked on, Cyril amused himself by detecting and commenting upon the shifts to which his acquaintances were reduced in order to escape seeing him. The ostracism was complete, and he pointed out to Mansfield that it must have been decreed only that morning—probably as soon as the Vindobona papers arrived. It so happened that there were no royal personages at the baths at present; but among the sojourners there was a large contingent of the Pannonian nobility, and it was from these, doubtless, that the fiat had gone forth which declared Count Mortimer to be from henceforth beyond the pale of society. A determined enemy, or even a mere busybody, could easily have found means to promulgate the news during those hours of the morning which were supposed to be devoted to rest, when authority had once spoken. It proved that no one was sufficiently courageous to disobey the edict but the officials of the place, who themselves saluted Cyril with an expression which said that this courtesy was not a reflection of their personal feelings, and that their sympathies were with his opponents. Matters were not improved on the arrival of the English papers, for it was discovered that the Vindobona journal which had done all the mischief had omitted one item of special interest in its quotation from the ‘Fleet Street Gazette.’ “The sudden collapse of the Hercynian opposition to Count Mortimer’s scheme,” wrote the correspondent at Czarigrad, “is thought here to be the result of the kind of business arrangement vulgarly known as a ‘deal.’ In other words, the Imperial Government has been bought off.” This was enough. The hatred always smouldering between the two Teutonic empires burst forth once more in the breasts of their representatives at Ludwigsbad, and the few Hercynians at the baths found themselves shunned almost as completely as Cyril, with whom their own convictions effectually forbade them to fraternise.

CHAPTER III.
IN SILVER SLIPPERS.

During the three days and a half anticipated by Cyril, he and his secretary remained under a ban, and moved about among the crowds of Kurgäste as little noticed as if they had been two invisible men, and almost as freely as if they had had Ludwigsbad to themselves. They were apparently unseen when, with their Bohemian glass tumblers suspended from their buttonholes, they joined the shivering throngs that surround in the early morning the kiosks from which the horrible healing waters are dispensed, and partook of their respective draughts, Cyril taking the proper eight glasses and Mansfield only one, purely for the sake of sociability. In the promenade which followed they met no one who was conscious of ever having seen them before; and when they had bought the regulation rolls and sat down to drink their coffee at a little table surrounded by scores of others, they were not only alone but unperceived in the crowd. In the afternoon they paid no visits and received none; and at dinner-time, when merry parties were formed round all the restaurant-tables, they sat down alone save for the company of the taciturn Thracian secretary Paschics, who seemed to be given over to perpetual mourning for the high position his employer had once held and lost. Not that their isolated condition made their table less gay than the rest. Cyril, always debonnaire and cheerful, exerted himself determinedly on these occasions to bring a smile to the melancholy countenance of Paschics, with the result that Mansfield became almost exhausted with laughing. The waiters hovered attentively in their neighbourhood, eager to catch a stray joke; and even the Kurdirektor, a very high and mighty autocrat indeed, found himself tempted by the peals of laughter to smoke a cigarette and partake of dessert in company with these victims of popular disapproval. One evening there was a dance after dinner at the Kursaal, and Cyril and Mansfield strolled in among the spectators, enjoying hugely the promptness with which way was made for them, as though they had been royal personages, or surrounded by an invisible but tangible fence. That is to say, Cyril enjoyed the experience frankly for its own sake, and Mansfield because he reflected that it was in Cyril’s cause he was undergoing it. Two years of fairly constant intercourse with Lady Philippa Mortimer had not tended to diminish his early veneration for her adored uncle, and there was also the further consolation for such hardship as his lot involved that she would regard it with sympathy—even with admiration.

The evenings on which there was no dancing were equally amusing in their way. Wandering through the shrubberies of the Königspark in the summer twilight, Cyril found himself accosted in sheltered corners first by one man and then by another who did not dare to dispute the general edict in public, but thought it might be advisable to remain friends with both sides under the rose. Naturally these people were not of the class or character with whom friendship was most desirable, being chiefly gentlemen who lived by their wits, with a sprinkling of Jews who believed that the Chevalier Goldberg had bought Cyril for their nation, and that this justified them in claiming his services for themselves, and it was a never-ending amusement to Mansfield to observe the adroitness with which Cyril snubbed them and dropped them promptly back into their proper places. There was one elderly capitalist who seemed to have been mildly coerced by the Chevalier into giving in his adhesion to the national movement, for on three separate occasions he pursued Cyril with a mournful persistence, endeavouring to persuade him that, since the masters of money throughout Europe were now for once united, it was folly to waste the force of such a combination on the mere acquisition of Palestine, when it might be used to establish a universal empire on a financial basis. The contrast between the frail, cringing figure of the old man, and his world-embracing schemes, was sufficiently ludicrous; but he stuck to his point until Cyril asked him what the hapless Jews scattered throughout Europe, on whom the popular fury would at once fall in case his plan was attempted, would think of him. Then he wrung his hands and made as though to rend his clothes, and departed sorrowful.

The three days mentioned by Cyril as the duration of the ostracism had elapsed; but when the usual visit to the springs was paid on the fourth morning, Mansfield noticed no change in the demeanour of the Kurgäste. People still looked over, round, and through the two Englishmen, and avoided carefully coming into the slightest personal contact with them as they stood waiting their turn to receive the hot and loathsome beverage. But when the unpleasant duty had been performed, and the drinkers turned away from the kiosk and into the promenade, the event occurred which Cyril had foreseen. Approaching the spring was a tall grey-bearded man of military appearance, walking with two others, who maintained their position a step behind him on either side, and to whom he turned and spoke occasionally. In the foreground, ranged in two lines and leaving an ample path for the new-comer, were all the most aristocratic of the Ludwigsbad visitors, bowing and curtseying with the deepest reverence as he reached them, and manifestly overjoyed when they received a personal greeting.

“The Emperor of Pannonia,” whispered Cyril to Mansfield. “Watch!”

How it happened Mansfield did not clearly see, since he was doing his best to copy the elaborate bows of the Pannonian magnates, but he was aware that the Emperor caught sight of Cyril, beckoned him forward, greeted him warmly, and requested him to turn and walk with him a short distance. Standing rather in the background, Mansfield was able to perceive and appreciate the expressions of astonishment and chagrin which chased one another over the countenances of the crowd that attended the Emperor, but he had little time to reflect upon their discomfiture, for a sign from Cyril warned him to fall into line with the two equerries, so that he could no longer observe the results of the Imperial condescension on the Emperor’s subjects. As for Cyril, he knew the reason of this friendly address, and had anticipated it. A Court scandal of a peculiarly unpleasant character had just been averted by means of the ready help of the Chevalier Goldberg. Not for the first time an archducal household had been established with the aid of the Chevalier’s money, and a secret threatening the honour of the Imperial house and the happiness of a young bride was safely locked up in the Chevalier’s breast. The Emperor was duly grateful, and having been informed of the connection between the Chevalier and Cyril, was doing honour to the one man by way of gratifying the other. He had, moreover, something to say also to Cyril himself.

“This Palestine scheme of yours, Count—I am glad to have the opportunity of speaking to you about it. Is there any prospect of your being successful?”

“I see no insuperable difficulty in our way at present, sir.”

“Well, I only hope you may succeed—as far as possible, that is—for there is no chance of getting rid of the whole body of Jews. The fewer that remain in Europe the more business will there be for those few, and I should fear that the emigrants will all come flocking back when they see how things are going. Still, you may relieve us of the lowest class of Jew for a time, at any rate, and that will do something to simplify our heart-breaking problems here. But before I can commend your scheme unreservedly, Count, I must be satisfied on one point of the utmost importance. You are aware that I number among my titles that of King of Jerusalem, and that two at least of my brother monarchs claim the right to do the same. We are hereditary guardians of the Holy Places, and you must see that it would not only be abhorrent to ourselves personally, but absolutely impossible, in view of the sentiment of Christendom, to place them in the power of the Jews.”

“That has been clearly foreseen, sir. It was the intention of the board whom I represent to request the Powers to nominate a Christian governor, who should make the Holy Places his chief care.”

“You make no suggestion as to the person to be nominated, Count?” The Emperor turned a keen glance upon Cyril.

“None, sir. It is obvious that the Prince to be chosen must be a man of liberal views, or he would fail to obtain the suffrages of all the Powers, but that is the only suggestion we could venture to offer. I suppose the governor would maintain order, as at present, by the aid of a Moslem guard; but it would be necessary to allow the Jews free access to the spots which they consider holy, and which they are now debarred from approaching. That proviso can hardly fail to commend itself to your Majesty as fair, I think?”

“It is only natural, and would affect no one but the Roumis, I imagine. Well, Count, you have relieved my mind. It will not surprise you to hear that urgent representations against your scheme have been made to me from several quarters, and without this very equitable proposal of yours I should have been forced to fall in with the views they expressed. Now, however, I am able to say that in my opinion you offer adequate protection for Christianity and the Holy Places, and I shall act accordingly. You are taking the waters here, I believe? I am glad to know you are at hand, in case I wish to consult you again on this subject.”

Thus graciously dismissed, Cyril mingled again with the crowd—a crowd that was now as anxious to propitiate as it had hitherto been to ignore him. During the next five minutes, three men, one of whom was the arbiter of fashion, asked him to dinner that night, and the Countess von Hohenthurm vouchsafed him the honour of carrying the paper bag containing her breakfast-roll. Tactless people complained of their bad eyesight, or lamented that they had not heard Count Mortimer was at the baths until this morning, but the tactful simply took up their acquaintance with him at the point where they had dropped it three days before. Cyril met their overtures in the same spirit, and his sole piece of revenge was to tell his entertainers at breakfast all the news of the last three days, as though they had only just arrived—a piece of pleasantry which brought to Mansfield’s face a passing gleam of satisfaction. Cyril took him to task for his lowering brow as they returned to the hotel, and told him that when the Countess von Hohenthurm was so condescending as to show an interest in a young man, it behoved that young man to be grateful, and to look it.

“They are all a set of sycophants!” returned Mansfield sharply. “How you can make friends of them again, I can’t imagine.”

“I don’t make friends of them, but they are fellow-members of society, and it would serve no good purpose to quarrel with them. If I was in their place, I should have acted precisely as they have done.”

“You won’t get me to believe that!” said Mansfield, with an air of mild reproof which Cyril found irresistibly comic.

“Why, how would you have had me mark my sense of their behaviour?” he asked.

“I don’t see how you can meet them again with any cordiality. Why not decline the honour of their further acquaintance?”

“Because we live in the great world, and not in Arcadia. You young people brought up virtuously in England have something terribly stagey about you. You are all for great coups, but that sort of thing doesn’t do in ordinary life. You remind me very much of my brother Caerleon as a young fellow. I don’t think I was ever so ineffably young myself. I hope not, at any rate. Melodrama is not good form.”

Much crushed by these remarks, which he received as a rebuke, Mansfield remained silent, and Cyril, observing this, administered a restorative as they entered the hotel.

“Never mind. I prefer you as you are. A little melodrama in private is rather amusing than otherwise, and in society you are a model of discretion, except as regards your looks. Those you must learn to control a little, but don’t think that I want you not to tell me what you think.”

He spoke rather absently, for the post had come in while they were out, and the table in his room was covered with letters and newspapers. He began at once to open the letters, while Mansfield turned to the papers and began his daily task of looking through them in search of any reference to the United Nation scheme.

“There is a very hostile article in this Scythian paper, Count,” he said after a time, looking round.

“Ah! what paper?”

“The ‘Pavelsburg Gazette.’”

“Good! then it’s inspired. Give me a rough translation, please.”

Mansfield was now accustomed to requests of this kind, and went through the article as rapidly as his somewhat imperfect knowledge of Scythian permitted. The writer was absolutely appalled by the news which had come from Czarigrad by way of England, and called upon all Christians to rise and prevent the proposed transfer of Palestine to Jewish hands. So sacrilegious an outrage could not be allowed to proceed, and it was the glorious privilege of the Emperor of Scythia, as head of the Orthodox Church and protector of the Holy Places, to prevent it. There was not a Scythian that would not give his life freely in such a cause, and the sooner the necessary steps were taken the better. It might be well even to proclaim a crusade, and end the Jewish difficulty at one blow by sweeping the whole of the accursed race from the earth.

“Very pretty!” said Cyril, “and evidently meant to prepare the way for effective action. Scythia has already sounded the other Powers, no doubt; I thought as much from what the Emperor said to me just now. Well, I have put a spoke in her wheel, I fancy. When she finds there is nothing to be done in that direction, she will proceed to push matters to extremities at Czarigrad, and then comes the tug of war.”

“But can you hope to put sufficient backbone into the Grand Seignior to enable Roum to stand up against her?” asked Mansfield, surprised by the confident tone.

“No, that would be beyond the wit of man, but I intend to put a little gentle pressure on Scythia instead.”

“Would it spoil your plans if you told me how you intend to do it? I can’t imagine how you will manage.”

Cyril smiled pleasantly. “There is a famine in Scythia at this moment,” he said; “so much you know already. You know also that it must be pretty bad for the Scythian papers to be allowed to acknowledge its existence at all. There is also a rising in Central Asia that looks threatening. The sufferers from the famine must be helped, and the rising must be put down, but where is the money to come from? Such hoards as the peasantry may have amassed in good years are exhausted by this time, and there are no Jews left in the rural districts to borrow from. The Government will have to step in, but though the war-chest is full, its contents must be kept intact in view of a possible European war, and there is very little money in the country otherwise. To improve matters, certain shrewd gentlemen in America have arranged a corner in cereals, with a special eye to this famine and the consequent demand. Now do you see where we come in, when it becomes evident that there is no money to be obtained in all Europe if our scheme is thwarted at Czarigrad?”

“You mean to starve them out?” said Mansfield, with more than a touch of horror in his tone.

“By no means. We take our pound of flesh, which is Palestine, that’s all.”

“What a queer-looking old chap that is over there, Count!” said Mansfield to Cyril, as they were taking their walk one morning about a week after the Emperor’s arrival. “He might be a stage brigand.”

Cyril glanced in the direction he indicated. “Why, that is my venerable friend Prince Mirkovics!” he cried. “Who would ever have dreamt of meeting him here? I thought he never left Thracia.”

He crossed the promenade with a rapid step, and accosted the old man whose truculent air and fierce white moustache had attracted Mansfield’s attention. The garb of civilisation sat awkwardly upon Prince Mirkovics, and it was obvious that he felt ill at ease without the pistols and dagger which adorned his girdle when in Thracian costume; but the scornful frown with which he had been contemplating the vanities of Ludwigsbad vanished when he caught sight of Cyril, whom he greeted with beaming smiles.

“I will join you in your walk, Count, if you will allow me,” he said, when Mansfield had been duly introduced to him. “I have a good deal to tell you.”

“Two years’ Thracian news!” said Cyril lightly. “I have avoided hearing or reading anything of the kind, on principle, since I left Thracia, but I felt all the time that it was only accumulating, to overwhelm me some day.”

“His Excellency loves to jest,” remarked Prince Mirkovics solemnly to Mansfield. “Perhaps,” he added, turning again to Cyril, “you are not even aware that his Majesty intends to visit Ludwigsbad? I believe he was to arrive to-day.”

“What, King Michael?” cried Cyril. “No, I had not heard it. Why, Mr Mansfield, how is this? It’s your business to keep me posted up in the names of the expected arrivals. Oh, is that it?” as Mansfield began a stammering defence; “you thought it might call up unpleasant memories, and therefore you left me to meet him unawares? I am not quite so sensitive as that, you know, and you needn’t be so very anxious to spare my feelings.”

“The Princess of Dardania is naturally coming as well,” continued Prince Mirkovics.

“Surely not? Why, her husband has only been dead for ten or twelve months. She is far too clever to outrage propriety by coming to such a place as this so soon.”

“She does not dare to stay away, Count. The quarrel with her eldest son has forced her to quit Dardania, and the coolness which came to a head before that between herself and her elder daughter closes Mœsia to her. Thracia is her only hope, for if King Michael should break his promise to marry the Princess Ludmilla, she would be discredited on all sides.”

Cyril’s eyes flashed ominously. “Then her Nemesis has overtaken her already?” he said.

“It has, Count, at least so far as regards the marriage project which threw you out of office. Her Royal Highness is a clever woman, but she has so much at stake in this affair that she has failed to show her customary tact. She has kept too tight a hand over young Michael, made the chain by which she has bound him to her daughter too evident, and if he could muster sufficient courage, he would break it. He slipped away from Thracia without her knowledge, well aware that she would oppose his coming here, and she, her daughter, and her household, are following him promptly. But everything will be done with propriety, my dear Count. She has borrowed the Grand-Duke Eugen’s villa, and will receive none but relations.”

“Still, the proceeding sounds a little undignified,” said Cyril drily.

“So much the better, Count, provided it fails. That woman is the curse of Thracia. Since you left us she has filled the Ministry, the army, and the civil service with Scythian sympathisers—for Drakovics, in his second childhood, is nothing but her tool—with the result that we are now bankrupt in all but name.”

“Bankrupt? and I left the treasury full!”

“Bankrupt. Such changes cost money, Count, both for rewarding friends and bribing foes. The King, again—he is a young gentleman of taste, and must spend liberally on his pleasures. The increase of the army—we could approve of that, for he is Otto Georg’s son, and should be a born soldier. The beautifying of the capital and the construction of needless public works—well, it provides employment for the proletariat, and no doubt he has inherited his mother’s charitable disposition. But when it comes to squandering money upon theatres and pictures, and subsidising musicians and dubious foreigners of all sorts—then, Count, we remember that he is the grandson of Luitpold of Weldart, and we tremble.”

“And does the Princess approve of these artistic pleasures?”

“By no means, Count; but she cannot persuade his Majesty to relinquish them, and since his mother left Thracia there is no one else who can even pretend to influence him.”

“But what a shameful thing for the Queen to leave Thracia when she had allowed her son to bring all this trouble upon the kingdom!” broke in Mansfield, who had imbibed from Lady Philippa an inveterate dislike of the woman whom she regarded as her uncle’s evil genius. “What has she done with herself?”

“Young man,” said Prince Mirkovics severely, “her Majesty was deeply affected by the unhappy events which drove Count Mortimer from Thracia. Her uncontrollable grief reflected so severely upon her son and the Princess of Dardania, that they proposed to place her in seclusion, alleging that she suffered from delusions. Warned in time, the Queen succeeded in escaping from the kingdom, accompanied by several faithful members of her household. From Czarigrad, where she took refuge, she made terms with her son, who agreed to pay her jointure without protest if she withdrew altogether from politics in future. Her Majesty then retired to a community of Protestant nuns on Mount Lebanon, where she occupies herself in good works and in bewailing the past. My daughter is one of those who share her exile, gladly devoting their lives to the service of their unfortunate mistress. Count Mortimer knows that I disliked the Queen’s being appointed regent, but nothing can excuse King Michael’s conduct to his mother.”

Cyril had remained silent while Prince Mirkovics spoke. His face was very pale, and it was with evident difficulty that he said—

“Have you no remedy to propose for the state of things in Thracia, Prince?”

“I have; but it is a drastic one. You wonder, perhaps, to see me here? Do you know that I am on my way home from England—I who have never left Thracia before? I visited your brother, to inquire whether there was any hope of his returning to the throne in this extremity.”

“My dear Prince!”

“How are we better off than when we were under the house of Franza, Count? Your brother came to our help then, but he refuses now.”

“And quite right, too. Accepting the offer of a vacant throne is a very different thing from annexing an occupied one.”

“Well, Count, we turn to you. Will you return to Thracia as Prime Minister? The country is on our side, and we propose to set before the King the alternatives of accepting you as Premier or as Regent. The Constitution makes provision for such an appointment in case of the incurable extravagance or deliberate viciousness of the monarch.”

“Pray speak lower, Prince. You are talking treason, and in Ludwigsbad the very rocks have ears. No; I cannot come. I have other work on hand.”

“You are doing something for the Jews. Oh, throw them over.”

“Not in favour of Thracia, at any rate. Thracia had me once, and resigned me with quite unnecessary willingness. Now she may want me, but she can’t have me. The punishment is deserved.”

“But for our sakes, Count—your friends?”

“No, Prince, I am not up to it. I gave the best part of my life to building up a workable and fairly honest system of government, and two years have been enough to reduce it to chaos. I could not submit to the years of weary office drudgery over again. New work I can take up and carry through; but I have lost the patience and elasticity I used to possess, and I will not fail where I succeeded once.”

CHAPTER IV.
A DISTURBING ELEMENT.

The bitter words in which Cyril renounced all interest in Thracia were interrupted by an exclamation from Mansfield, who was staring incredulously at a little party of people approaching from one of the winding paths. There were an old lady in a bath-chair, a girl, and a young man, the last two unmistakably English.

“Don’t you see, Count? It’s Lady Phil and Usk!” cried Mansfield, quickening his steps; but Cyril caught him by the arm.

“Wait a minute, Mansfield. Did my brother stipulate that you were not to speak to Lady Phil during this year of probation? If he did, I will curb my natural longing to see my niece, and we will turn our backs upon danger.”

“Oh, no, really!” Mansfield was horror-struck by the suggestion. “I was not to follow her about; but I was never forbidden to speak to her if we met. Lord Caerleon trusted me, I am sure.”

“Caerleon was always trustful,” said Cyril unkindly; but he consented to keep pace with Mansfield’s hurrying feet, and was considerate enough to allow the young people to greet one another apart, while he presented Prince Mirkovics in due form to Princess Soudaroff, an exiled Scythian lady who occupied the position of godmother to both the Marchioness of Caerleon and her daughter. Had the matter rested with him, he would have left them to themselves for a longer time, but Prince Mirkovics, who was standing with his hat in his hand, looked at him reproachfully.

“Alas, Count! am I not to enjoy the honour of being presented also to Madame your niece?”

“Prince Mirkovics accords you royal honours, Phil,” said Cyril. “Is it necessary to mention that Lady Philippa is Lord Caerleon’s daughter, Prince?”

“Quite unnecessary, Count. Madame must not come to Thracia unless she comes as queen. There are still old men who remember her father’s reign, and it goes without saying that all the young men would be ready to champion the cause of such a lady.”

“I’m so glad you think me like my father,” said Philippa, in her old impulsive way. “But even if he was still King of Thracia, I shouldn’t be of any importance, you know. Usk would be the great person, not I.”

Prince Mirkovics glanced at the slight dark-haired youth whose mirthful grey eyes met his across the bath-chair, and shook his head.

“No, madame, Milord Usk resembles your mother too much. She was a beautiful girl, indeed—I remember seeing her at the municipal ball given in honour of your father’s arrival at Bellaviste—but to us she is only the woman for whose sake Carlino forsook Thracia.”

“What a horrid way of putting it!” cried Philippa. “You ought to be thankful that I’m not a princess, for I should get you banished from Court for saying such things. Uncle Cyril, I am sure we ought not to keep Prince Mirkovics standing here so long.”

She glanced entreatingly at her uncle, for Prince Mirkovics still maintained his deferential attitude, hat in hand, and Cyril came to the rescue. “My niece is afraid you will take cold, Prince. Pray put on your hat.”

“May I be permitted to attend Madame for a short distance?” asked the old man, complying immediately with the request, and Cyril, much amused, accepted the humbler office of walking beside the bath-chair, while Mansfield, looking extremely disconsolate, attached himself to Usk.

“Ah, Princess, this is your doing!” said Cyril to the old lady. “You are certainly an inveterate match-maker. I never knew any one like you.”

“Why, what have I done?” asked Princess Soudaroff, with great simplicity. “I thought the Ludwigsbad waters might do me good, and therefore I came here. Could I leave Phil and her brother behind, when their parents had entrusted them to my care?”

“Perhaps you had heard that the Ludwigsbad water is meat and drink in one, and thought you might economise, eh, Princess? Have you been spending your whole year’s income in advance on your charities, as usual?”

“No, no. The fact is, poor Phil seemed so painfully interested in Ludwigsbad and your letters, that I thought the waters would—would do me no harm, and so we are here.”

“The truth at last, Princess! Confession is good for the soul.”

“I like the look of the young man,” remarked the Princess confidentially. “Of course I have heard a great deal about him already from Usk, but I was anxious to see him. And he is your secretary, Lord Cyril? And you are engaged in bringing about the restoration of the Jews to their own land? What a wonderful age this is of ours, and what a privilege for you to be allowed to assist in such a work! I can’t tell you how thankful it makes me that I have been allowed to live long enough to witness this crowning fulfilment of prophecy.”

“I must introduce my friend Goldberg to you if he comes here,” said Cyril. “You and he both take that view of things.”

“I have already had some correspondence with the Chevalier Goldberg on the subject of relief for the Scythian Jews. Ah, how sad it is that my own country should take the lead in ill-treating God’s ancient people! Is it true that Scythia is even now resisting your measures for releasing them from bondage?”

“Scythia is undoubtedly doing her best to spoil our plans at Czarigrad.”

“Lord Cyril, a thought has struck me.” The old lady sat upright suddenly. “I am expecting Vladimir Alexandrovitch here in a day or two. You know that he manages my affairs, and is anxious to consult me about some investment. When I told him I should be at Ludwigsbad, he said that would suit him quite well.”

“Prince Soudaroff is coming here?”

“Yes, merely on this business of mine, as I said. But he is an honourable, fair-minded man. Why should you not meet him informally and talk things over? You could put the case for the Jews fully before him—men in his position are always surrounded by people whose interest it is to keep the truth from them—and I am sure he would be convinced. Then he could represent the real state of affairs to the Emperor. You won’t refuse to make the attempt? It may save so much delay.”

“I shall be delighted to meet Prince Soudaroff whenever you like, Princess.” But in his own mind Cyril was using very different language regarding the prospective visit of the great diplomatist who was so fortunate as to be brother-in-law to the unsuspicious old lady in the bath-chair.

“Then they have felt the pinch already? This is sharp work. Wily idea to cloak the object of Soudaroff’s journey in this way. But I shall have to walk warily, for it’s no joke to find oneself between him and her most sapient Highness of Dardania.”

They had arrived at the bridge between the old and new promenades, and he seized the opportunity to detach Prince Mirkovics from Philippa, and carry him off to his rooms, earning Mansfield’s undying gratitude by deputing him to escort the ladies back to their lodgings—a gratitude which was immediately extended to the Princess when she remarked that it would be pleasant to take a turn in the Neue Wiese before returning.

“Do you know,” said Philippa mysteriously, as she resumed her place beside the chair, while Mansfield unblushingly deserted Usk in order to walk with her, “I think that poor old man must be a little queer. He has been going on in the most extraordinary way, saying that I ought to be a queen, and trying to make me discontented with my humble lot in life. I told him I was perfectly happy in it, and then he said that I had inherited my father’s only fault, lack of ambition, and that if father and Uncle Cyril could be mixed up together, they would make a perfect king. I told him that I thought Uncle Cyril was splendid, but that I wouldn’t have father the least bit different for anything, and he said that only confirmed what he had remarked before.”

“He evidently thinks it’s your duty to worry father back to Thracia,” laughed Usk.

“Awfully lucky for me that you don’t agree with him,” said Mansfield. “I should never have had a chance of coming across you in that case.”

“And if you had,” said Usk, “it wouldn’t have done you much good. Do you think her Royal Highness the Princess Philippa would have condescended to be aware of your existence?”

“Usk! as if I should ever forget old friends, or pretend to make any difference with them!” cried Philippa indignantly.

“I am sure you never would,” said Mansfield, so fervently that Usk laughed aloud, and Princess Soudaroff smiled a placid smile. They had now reached the Königspark, and were passing one of the outlying restaurants with which it is dotted. Before the door stood three dusty travelling-carriages loaded with luggage. The drivers were refreshing themselves after the not very lengthy journey from Charlottenbad, and a number of servants, swaggering about, were displaying their liveries before the admiring eyes of the waitresses. As Princess Soudaroff and her companions passed on, they came in sight of a group of rather noisy young men, who were gathered round a table on a terrace overlooking the river, apparently recruiting their exhausted energies with the help of beverages not exactly of a temperance character. One of the drinkers, who sat by himself on one side of the table, made a remark to the rest, and the whole party turned round and stared at Philippa. The blush called up on her cheek by the fervour of Mansfield’s remark changed into a flush of anger when she became aware of their rudeness, and she held her golden head very high as she addressed a studiously careless observation to Usk, but her displeasure appeared to fail of its intended effect.

“A la belle Anglaise!” cried the youth who had already spoken to his friends, who were now all standing up round the table, and the words were followed by the crash of broken glass as the goblets were dashed down after the toast had been drunk.

“I say, this is beyond a joke!” cried Usk angrily, but Mansfield gripped his arm, with a look that said, “We will come back and settle things when the ladies are gone indoors.” Philippa was too much discomposed to observe this piece of by-play, finding it necessary to relieve her feelings by a sweeping denunciation of the manners of foreigners, in which both the young men heartily agreed with her. When Mansfield had stigmatised the unknown roisterers as a set of cads, and Usk had added that they were probably shop-walkers from Vindobona out for a holiday, she felt better, and made haste to turn the conversation to more agreeable themes. Before very long, however, a hurried footstep became audible in the direction from which they had come, and an officer in undress uniform, catching them up, bowed profoundly to the Princess and Philippa.

“My august master, the King of Thracia, regrets deeply that the indiscreet remarks of some person in his company annoyed mademoiselle,” he said, in French. “It will afford his Majesty much gratification to be permitted to offer his apologies in person later in the day.”

“We are much honoured by his Majesty’s solicitude, monsieur,” replied Princess Soudaroff promptly, “and neither my god-daughter nor I could dream of demanding further apologies. Karl, you may go on.”

And with a bow that equalled his own in courtliness, the Princess left the discomfited emissary standing in the road.

“It is nothing but a trick to discover where we are staying,” she remarked to the rest, when they were out of earshot.

“I shall have something to say to that youth,” said Usk, jerking his head in the direction of the distant monarch. “Wretched little whippersnapper, how can he summon up the cheek to look a Mortimer in the face?”

“No, Usk,” said Philippa earnestly; “you mustn’t say a word to him. It might get Uncle Cyril into fresh trouble. I suppose if the King is determined to make our acquaintance, he must; but if he does I shall let him know what I think of him.”

None of the party happened to look round, or they would have perceived the disconsolate messenger following them at a discreet distance. His errand of pursuing these strangers to their hotel was not an agreeable one to him, and he hailed gladly the appearance of Prince Mirkovics, whose elaborate salutation showed that he was acquainted with them, as a relief from the necessity. The old noble’s eyes gleamed when he heard the story.

“Yes; I can tell his Majesty who the young lady is,” he said, and walked on so fast that the officer could hardly keep pace with him or find breath to tell the King why he had come.

“Well, Prince; so you can tell us who it is that we have been admiring?” said King Michael, lazily erecting a pile of broken wine-glasses.

“The lady, sir, is the daughter of the Marquis Carlino, your august father’s predecessor on the throne.”

“The niece, then, of the excellent Count Mortimer!” said the Scythian officer who had failed in his errand.

“What does that signify, when she has such hair?” demanded King Michael. “I never saw anything like it. All these German women look washed-out beside her.”

The youthful monarch posed as a connoisseur of female beauty, and his attendants murmured a respectful acquiescence in his decision. Prince Mirkovics alone did not seem to have heard it. His sombre eyes were gleaming again under their shaggy brows.

“I am glad your Majesty has enjoyed this one glimpse of the lady,” he said.

“Why do you speak as though I should never see her again, Prince? I intend to make her acquaintance at the ball to-night, and I’ll bet you anything you like that she gives me half a dozen dances.”

“The lady does not attend public balls, sir.” As he spoke Prince Mirkovics blessed secretly the strict principles in which Nadia Caerleon had brought up her daughter.

“Not go to balls? Why not?” asked the King, in unaffected astonishment.

“Possibly because her parents do not approve of the class of person she would meet there, sir,” replied Prince Mirkovics, bestowing a severe glance upon the would-be lady-killer, who looked offended.

“Oh, very well: then I shall command Count Mortimer to present her, that’s all. I mean to speak to her.”

“With what object, sir, if I may venture to ask?”

“Because I want to see whether she is as lively as she is handsome, of course. She ought to have plenty of fun in her, from her face.”

“If your Majesty is really desirous of making the lady’s acquaintance”—Prince Mirkovics was astonished and delighted by the sudden development in himself of such powers of diplomacy as he had never suspected hitherto—“surely it would be well to say nothing to Count Mortimer. As I ventured to hint just now, if his Excellency knew that you, sir, had been graciously pleased to express admiration of his niece, he would probably remove her at once from Ludwigsbad.”

“Hang it! so he would,” said the King peevishly. “It would be just like him.”

“Perhaps, sir, without mentioning the matter to Count Mortimer, I might have the honour of making your Majesty acquainted with the lady at a little entertainment of some sort. A ball, of course, is out of the question——”

“And moreover, their Highnesses the Princess of Dardania and Princess Ludmilla could not be present,” put in the Scythian officer.

The King frowned fiercely at the interrupter. “Their Highnesses have nothing whatever to do with it,” he said angrily. “I make my own friends without asking their leave.”

“Sir,” said Prince Mirkovics, “allow me to say that Captain Roburoff is nevertheless in the right. I must be able to invite the Princess Ludmilla, at any rate, to grace the entertainment by her presence. Would a party of pleasure to visit some object of interest meet your Majesty’s wishes?”

“Anything, anything!” said the King sulkily. “Arrange it as you like, Prince; only be sure to let me know in time, so that I may make no other engagement. And see here, you must look after Princess Lida. I am not going to dangle after her all day, instead of talking to the beautiful Mortimer.”

“I will do my best to arrange everything to your Majesty’s taste,” said Prince Mirkovics as he retired. Once out of the King’s presence, a feeling of sick disgust came over the old man as he thought of the part he had played.

“That wretched boy the son of Queen Ernestine!” he muttered. “It is as well she cannot see him. And I to be plotting to give him Carlino’s daughter! But that is the very thing. She has spirit and strength of mind sufficient to save him in spite of himself. And if not—if he ventured to slight her, to ill-treat her”—Prince Mirkovics’s hand clenched itself involuntarily—“we would tear him from the throne, and seat her there alone. I would kill him with my own hands; but it would be worth a year or two of misery for her to have her reigning in Thracia.”

After due consultation with his hotel-keeper and with the director of the baths, Prince Mirkovics sent out that evening the invitations for his picnic, and resigned himself to wait four whole days before he could do anything more. During this period, however, King Michael contrived to steal a march upon him. Cyril, to whom in righteous indignation Mansfield had borne the news of the King’s extraordinary behaviour, thought it well to make a point of accompanying Princess Soudaroff and Philippa in their morning and evening promenades, and on these occasions his party invariably encountered that of the King. The first time this happened, King Michael, who had not chosen to receive Cyril when the latter called at his hotel the day before, stopped and spoke to him with marked graciousness. The next time, becoming aware, apparently, that the ex-Premier was not alone, he desired him to present his relations, and addressed to each of them a few affable words, delivered with a blasé and venerable air which sat oddly upon his youthful countenance. This gave him the opportunity of seeing Philippa in a new character, for the spectacle of the sallow, weary-eyed boy, who had treated him with so much ingratitude, patronising her beloved uncle, was almost too much for her, and her blue eyes sparkled with the indignation which her close-pressed lips succeeded in restraining. Cyril was not blind to the feelings of either side, but his only comment on what he saw was to tease Philippa afterwards about her manners, which he declared to lack the repose that ought to mark the caste of Vere de Vere.

On the evening before Prince Mirkovics’s picnic Cyril and Mansfield betook themselves to Princess Soudaroff’s rooms to join her dinner-party, instead of dining as usual in the open air. The only other visitor present was her brother-in-law, the great Scythian diplomatist, and it was for his benefit that this formal indoor dinner had been arranged, in order that the keen eyes of Ludwigsbad might not observe his conference with Cyril. As soon as the meal was over Usk gave his arm to the Princess, Mansfield, who had received his orders beforehand, followed, nothing loth, with Philippa, and the two statesmen were left to themselves, Cyril bringing his chair to Prince Soudaroff’s end of the table, and waiting for him to begin to speak. A curious visitor might have observed that when either man glanced away the eyes of the other ran searchingly over him, as though to discover some joint in his armour, but that when the two pairs of eyes met, an impenetrable veil seemed to be let down to hide the soul behind each. Prince Soudaroff raised a glass of wine critically to the light as he said—

“What are your terms, Count?”

“You desire an accommodation, then?”

Prince Soudaroff shrugged his shoulders. “What would you have? You have hedged us in so completely that we must capitulate or starve. I suppose it is understood that if we withdraw our opposition at Czarigrad you get us the loan we want on easy terms?”

“I regret to say that no money can pass until our concession is actually granted. Aid in corn you shall have to any reasonable extent.”

“This is ungenerous, Count. Why such distrust of our honour?”

“It is a compliment to you, Prince. We must make things safe.”

“Well, I suppose you rely on cruel necessity to bring us to our knees. But there is one indispensable condition. The proposed governor of Palestine must be an Orthodox prince.”

“That is not our affair. It is for the Powers to decide.”

“Nonsense, my friend! No one knows better than you how to manage the Powers. You and your syndicate can impose your will upon them in this particular as in others. Our honour forbids us to accept anything else. Our past history, the blood we have shed in the Christian cause against the infidel——”

“Let me advise you to write it off as a bad debt, Prince.”

“Impossible. I dare not return to Pavelsburg without this modification. The Emperor is firm. He will risk and lose everything rather than yield the point.”

“Then he must bring the Powers to see it in the same light.”

“But that is impossible, I tell you. We have no means of bringing them to our side. Come, Count, we must have your help. Prince Kazimir of Dardania is our candidate—a German on the mother’s side. Europe will not be irreconcilable. What can we offer you to ensure his election?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything I want,” drawled Cyril.

“Money—when we get it? Titles—we will make you a prince? Political power?—come, we will propose you as High Commissioner of Minoa, and you can enjoy yourself there to your heart’s content.”

“Thanks, Prince; it’s not big enough.”

“Well, if you will not accept anything for yourself, what of your family? Would you care to see your niece Queen of Thracia? Roburoff tells me that young Michael is perfectly infatuated with her.”

“Unfortunately there is an obstacle, in the shape of the Princess of Dardania and her daughter.”

“Oh, the Princess has failed us twice, we need not consider her. One throws away an untrustworthy tool, you know. As for the girl, we will find her another husband. Your niece would suit Michael much better—keep him well in hand and look the part, too. I have been studying her closely since I came here. She will never have the regular beauty of her mother; but her colouring is far more charming, and—Englishwoman though she is—she has not the distressing woodenness of manner which spoiled the lovely Nadia Mikhailovna in her younger days. If that girl had been brought up by a woman of the world, instead of a saintly fanatic like my sister Pauline Vassilievna, she would have taken Europe by storm. Your niece can never rival her. But then, as I say, she has dignity and good-humour and bonhomie such as her mother did not possess. Why, I would advise my august master to obtain her hand for the Crown Prince, but that I should despair of making her a convert to Orthodoxy.”

Cyril laughed gently. “If my niece wishes to be Queen of Thracia, Prince, she will attain her object without my help. If she doesn’t, nothing I could do would have any effect upon her.”

“You would return to Thracia as Premier, of course.”

“Thanks, but that I have already refused to do.”

“Then I fear we can settle nothing,” said Prince Soudaroff, rising from the table, “since I am forbidden to accept any agreement that excludes this all-important stipulation. I am returning to Pavelsburg at once, and I will take his Imperial Majesty’s pleasure on the subject. Shall we join the ladies? I must make my adieux at once, or I shall not reach Charlottenbad in time for the train.”

But although Prince Soudaroff’s coachman was distinctly ordered, in the hearing of Cyril and Usk, to take the Charlottenbad road, he did not do so, nor did the occupant of the carriage appear to feel any alarm when he found himself being driven exactly in the opposite direction. The road which the coachman appeared to prefer led into the hills, and after a drive of about twenty minutes the carriage stopped at a small door in a park-wall, and Prince Soudaroff alighted. The door opened at his knock, and he walked briskly along the path that led from it, guided by a ray of light from a window at some distance in front. Below this window was a door, which was also opened promptly by an invisible watcher, and admitted the visitor to a passage in which was a back staircase. The man-servant who had been stationed at the door conducted him in perfect silence up the stairs, and through a small ante-room into a luxurious boudoir, in which was sitting a lady in trailing garments of black and a cap with a long black veil falling from it to the ground. She dismissed the servant with a gesture.

“Well, what is your news?” she asked imperiously of Prince Soudaroff.

“Bad, madame. The Mortimer is incorruptible.”

“Then the negotiations are broken off?”

“Unfortunately, madame, we cannot afford to do that. The other side know that they have only to wait, and we must yield.”

“He refuses to consent to the election of my son?”

“He will not express any preference, madame. The matter is one for the Powers, he says. You and I know that his personal assent would satisfy the Emperor, and give us all we want.”

“Because it would discredit him with the Jews when it came out?”

“Either that, madame, or it would so revolt the Catholic powers that they would combine to oblige Roum to refuse the concession, and he would lose his prestige. When the Jews reject him, he cannot sink much lower. Perhaps Hayti would afford the only possible field for his powers.”

The Princess of Dardania smiled gently at the brutal joke. “Then the affair resolves itself once more into a personal contest between Count Mortimer and myself,” she said. “You will let me know anything of moment that occurs to you, and I will turn my thoughts to winning the assent which is either to ruin our friend’s influence or discredit his cause, or both.”

“The task could not be in abler hands, madame. Perhaps I might venture to offer one single suggestion? I hear rumours that the Mortimer is aiming at the throne of Thracia for his niece.”

“Ah, he wishes her to supplant my daughter?”

“Exactly so, madame. The presumption of the idea is atrocious, but it occurs to me that it might prove useful. It might be possible to lead him on by its means. For instance, from an incautious remark he let drop, it seems to me that his Majesty must have made overtures to him, with the view of inducing him to return to Thracia. That opens up dangerous possibilities, but it also gives us some idea how to set to work.”

“I see.” The Princess sat with her black brows drawn together.

“And now, madame, I will depart, if your Royal Highness will permit me. It would not look well to lose my train after starting in such excellent time. You wished me to convey a letter to the Emperor, I believe?”

The Princess unlocked her writing-case, and took out a sealed envelope, which Prince Soudaroff placed in an inner pocket. Kissing the hand which the Princess extended to him, he took his leave, and quitted the villa with the same precautions as he had observed on entering it. His carriage was waiting for him under the wall of the park, and he was quickly embarked on the long drive necessary to bring him to Charlottenbad and the train.

CHAPTER V.
THE CROWN MATRIMONIAL.

It was with a sardonic chuckle that Prince Mirkovics remarked the next morning to his pretty German daughter-in-law, whom he had summoned by telegraph from Thracia to assist him upon this momentous occasion, that the entertainment he was offering to his future Queen was favoured with Queen’s weather. The irony underlying the speech was necessarily lost upon Princess Boris, to whom Princess Lida of Dardania was the only possible Queen for Thracia, but she responded with sympathetic cheerfulness, relieved to be able to display her new Felix gown without offering it up as a sacrifice to her loyalty. The locality of the picnic had cost Prince Mirkovics much anxious thought, but he had fixed at last upon a spot known as the Tannenspitze, a grassy hill-top emerging from a sea of pines, and commanding an extensive view. Carriages were to convey the party from Ludwigsbad to the foot of the hill, but the summit itself could only be approached on foot, by means of a variety of intricate paths through the pine-woods, and this it was that rendered the place specially suitable in view of Prince Mirkovics’s purposes. The arrangements generally were left in the hands of Princess Boris, who was dominated by the ambition of giving the smartest picnic Ludwigsbad had ever seen. This necessitated an expenditure at which the frugal soul of her father-in-law rose in shocked revolt, but he remembered in time the stakes for which he was playing, and held his peace.

In spite of the magnitude of the preparations for their entertainment, the list of those invited was rather select than lengthy. The guest of the day was naturally Princess Lida, a young lady of seventeen, endowed with a tact and assurance that would have done credit to a world-worn society leader of seventy. It pleased her Highness, who may or may not have received a hint from her mother before starting, to single out Philippa as the object of her special favour, and enlist her as her inseparable companion for the day. Philippa must sit beside her in the carriage, and walk with her through the pine-woods, and give detailed answers to an endless list of searching questions as to her home life, her favourite pursuits, her tastes, and her ancestry. The easy persistence with which Princess Lida imposed her will upon the whole party, and her stamp upon the conversation, astonished and oppressed the English girl, who felt herself overgrown and unfinished and badly dressed in the presence of this very self-possessed young lady. The only misgiving which had afflicted Philippa on starting, relative to her gown of white cloth, with its edging of gold cord, and pale blue silk shirt, was the fear that something darker would be more suitable for a rough country walk. Now, however, as she contemplated Princess Lida’s delicate silver-grey silk and black lace, and the marvellous confection of pervenche cashmere, decked in bewildering fashion with velvet bows, diamond buttons, iridescent embroidery, and silk fringe, which Princess Boris had considered fitting wear for the occasion, she owned to herself that the dress she had worn at the Marlborough House garden-party, a few weeks back, would not have been at all too smart. A miserable consciousness of her shoes also oppressed her, for they were English-made and serviceable, and contrasted painfully with the fairy-like foot-gear, high-heeled and highly decorated, of the other ladies.

When the carriages had been left behind, however, and the walk through the woods began, Philippa found that the advantage was on her own side, but she thought Prince Mirkovics need not have emphasised this superiority in the way he did. Noticing the difficulty with which Princess Lida stumbled along the rough track, he devoted himself ostentatiously to removing the stones from her path, accompanying his attentions with remarks which the two girls were fain to regard as breathing loyalty and respect, but which seemed fated to move King Michael and his suite to bursts of ill-concealed laughter. It was a relief to Philippa when their host insisted at last on offering his arm to the Princess, and provided a cavalier for herself in the shape of Captain Roburoff, who appeared to have altogether forgotten and forgiven the snub he had received only five days ago at her godmother’s hands. He spoke of Cyril and his efforts to solve the Jewish problem with so much interest and appreciation that Philippa, unconscious that a word from Prince Soudaroff had led him to read up the subject carefully, felt her heart warm towards him, and conversed with an animation such as she rarely showed to strangers.

Cyril himself was unable to spare time for the picnic, which caused Prince Mirkovics a secret guilty satisfaction, but he had generously given Mansfield a day’s holiday, which had so far failed to bring the secretary the pleasure he had expected. Philippa’s society was unattainable, and in despair Mansfield attached himself to another disconsolate young Englishman, who knew no one but the friends with whom he had come. Together they forsook the beaten track in favour of a torrent-bed, which afforded them a good deal of scrambling and a certain amount of risk, arousing thereby the longing envy of Usk, who had been delivered over to the tender mercies of Princess Lida’s lady-in-waiting. Countess Birnsdorf was stiff, elderly, and unappreciative of rural delights, and she subjected Usk to a severe cross-examination, with the view of discovering whether he was really “born,” in the German sense of the word. His light-hearted confession that he really could not answer half her questions without looking up his family history in the ‘Peerage’ shocked and startled her, and he detected a perceptible shrinking from his society until she had satisfied herself as to the length of time the Mortimers had reigned at Llandiarmid, and the arms they had borne at different epochs. Early study of the carvings and stained glass in the Castle hall had rendered Usk well versed in these, and before the hill-top was reached, the Countess had come to look upon him almost with friendliness. The feeling was not reciprocated, however, and Usk was base enough to turn his charge over to Mansfield’s unhappy friend, who had in some way contrived to lose his companion in the wood, and approached to ask whether Usk had seen him. Quieting his conscience with the excuse that it would be quite a novel and exciting sensation for the Countess to tall for the first time to some one who was not “born,” Usk slipped away to find Mansfield, whom he discovered engaged in a solitary search for adventures in the miniature cavern where the stream took its rise. In this Usk joined him, and they wasted all the vestas they had with them, made themselves decidedly wet, and tore their clothes a little, enjoying themselves thoroughly the while. When the want of matches rendered further exploration impracticable, they remembered reluctantly their duty to the rest of the party, and were retracing their steps to the summit of the hill, when there was a flash of blue and white through the trees, and the two young men were suddenly confronted by Philippa, who burst upon them, flushed and panting.

“Usk,” she cried fiercely, “if you let that odious little cad come near me again, I’ll never speak another word to you in my life!”

“Which I wish to remark, that your language is strong, Phil,” observed Usk mildly.

Mansfield’s eyes blazed as he turned upon him. “For shame, Usk! Doesn’t it matter to you that your sister has been insulted? Who is it, Lady Phil? that Scythian fellow?”

“No, no,” panted Philippa, “it’s the King. But Usk is quite right. It was silly of me to be so excited. Oh, please, Mr Mansfield, don’t go. I—I want you to hear how it was. Please stay here.”

She caught his hand and held it, and Mansfield, before whose eyes had floated a vision in which his stick made closer acquaintance with King Michael’s sacred person than the monarch would be likely to consider agreeable, allowed himself to be persuaded to remain, more especially since Usk gave him a warning look behind Philippa’s back. “This is my affair. You have no right to interfere,” the look meant, and Mansfield was forced to submit.

“I suppose they must have arranged it beforehand,” Philippa went on, “for you know, Usk, I was walking with Captain Roburoff. He talked so nicely about Uncle Cyril, and told me such interesting things about the Jews in Scythia, that I never thought about the path until he stopped suddenly, and said, ‘A thousand pardons, mademoiselle! What a fool I am! I have lost the way,’ and then I found that none of the others were in sight, and I could not hear their voices either. Captain Roburoff seemed dreadfully sorry, and asked me to sit down on a fallen tree while he went on a little farther to see where the path led to. I said I was not tired, but he persisted I must be, and I thought he would fancy that I was afraid to stay in the wood alone, so I sat down. He was out of sight among the trees almost at once, and it really was rather lonely, so that I was quite glad when I heard him coming back, as I thought. But it wasn’t Captain Roburoff at all, it was the King, and he said he had flown to the relief of the distressed damsel, and talked a lot of nonsense about wood-nymphs, and tried to pay me compliments about—about my hair, you know, and that sort of thing. I nearly laughed, but I thought it might be his way of being polite, so I walked on with him. Then we came to a rather steep place, and he would insist on helping me up it (though I believe I could have helped him much better), and he squeezed my hand. I pulled it away at once, and he said, in the most idiotic way, ‘Would that I might call that fair hand mine for ever!’ I thought that was going rather far, even for a foreigner, so I made some remark about Princess Lida, just to recall her to his mind. Then he flew out and said that he hated Princess Lida, that his mother and the Princess of Dardania had arranged the marriage when he was a baby, and had brought him up to look upon it as a settled thing, and that Princess Lida had no soul, and not a thought in common with him, and he was tired of her very name, and he would be graciously pleased to marry me instead. Fancy—a boy years younger than I am! He had got sentimental again by that time, but I was so angry that I gave him a good talking-to, and told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that Princess Lida was perfectly lovely, and would make him a far better queen than he had any right to expect, and then he went into such a passion! I think he must have expected me to regard his offer as a sort of command, to be obeyed without question, for he said that the Princess of Dardania and her daughter were the curse of Thracia, and that it would be my fault if the kingdom was ruined and he went to the bad. I wanted to box his ears, and at last I was really afraid I should, for he was just like a little boy who ought to be put in a corner, so I came away. Usk, do you think he was mad—or drunk?” Philippa ended the story of her wrongs in an awestruck whisper.