The Adventure of Princess Sylvia
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"It was true. Everything – everything in my whole life – is changed now. It would be better if I had never seen you. Good-bye."
She ran from him. One step he took as if to pursue and keep her, but checked himself and followed her only with his eyes. In them there was more of anger than yearning; for Maximilian was a proud man, and to have his love, and the sacrifice he would have made for love's sake, flung back in his face, came like an icy douche when the blood is at fever heat.
For love of this girl he had in a few days altered the habits of a lifetime. Pride, reserve, iron self-control, the wish not only to appear, but to be, a man above the frailties of common men; the desire to be admired almost as a god by his people all, all, he had flung aside for her. He was too just not to realize that if one of his many Royal cousins, of younger branches than his, had contemplated throwing away for love half that he was ready now to cast to the winds, he would have regarded such weakness with contempt. "He jests at scars who never felt a wound"; and until the Emperor had learned by his own most unlooked-for experience what love meant, what men will do for love while its sweet madness is on them, he would have been utterly unable to sympathize with such passionate insanity as his own. A cousin inclined to act as he was bent on acting would once have found all the Emperor's influence, even force perhaps, brought forward to constrain him. Maximilian saw this change in himself, was astonished and shamed by it; yet would have persevered, recklessly trampling down every obstacle, if only Sylvia had seen things with his eyes.
She had accused him of insulting her, caring not at all that, even to make her morganatically his wife, he must give great cause of offense to his Ministers and his people. He was expected to marry a woman of Royal rank, suitable to his own, and to give the country an heir. If Sylvia had accepted the position he offered, he could never have thought of another marriage. Not only would it be exceedingly difficult, in modern days, to find a princess willing to tolerate such a rival, but it would be impossible for him so to desecrate the bond between himself and the woman he adored. This being so, there could be no direct heir to the throne. At his death his uncle, the Archduke Egon's son, would succeed; and, during his own reign, the popularity which was dear to him would be hopelessly forfeited. Rhaetians would never forgive him for selfishly preferring his own private happiness to the good of the nation, or what they would consider its good; and they would have a right to their resentment, as they had a right to demand that he should marry. He could fancy how old "Iron Heart" von Markstein would present this view to him, with furious eloquence, temples that throbbed like the ticking of a watch, eyes netted with bloodshot veins. He could fancy, too, how with Sylvia's love and promise to uphold him, he could have stood against the storm, steadfast in his own indomitable will. But now, the will which had carried him through life in a triumphal progress had been powerless against that of a girl. She would have none of him. A woman whose face was her fortune, whose place in life reached hardly so high as the first steps of a throne, had refused – an emperor.
Hardly yet could Maximilian believe the things which had happened. He had spoken of doubting that he had won her love; and so he had doubted. But he had allowed himself very strongly to hope, since in the annals of history it had scarcely been known that an emperor's suit should be despised. Besides, he had loved her so passionately, that it seemed she could not be cold. He hoped still that, when she had passed the night in reflecting, in thinking over the situation, perhaps taking counsel with that commonplace but sensible lady, her mother, she might be ready, if approached for the second time, to change her mind.
For the first moment or two after the stinging rebuff he had suffered, Maximilian felt that he could not demean himself – having been so misjudged, so accused – to sue again. But, as he looked toward the house, and thought of Sylvia's sweetness, her beauty dimmed by grief – which he had caused – a great tenderness breathed its calm over the thwarted passion in his breast.
He would write a letter and send it to her room; or no, better give her a longer interval for repentance. To-morrow he would see her and show her all the depth of the love she had thrust aside. She could not withstand him forever; and now that he had burned his boats behind him, he would not go back. He could not give her up.
Sylvia had hurried blindly toward the house, and it was instinct rather than intention which led her to the open window of the music-room. Tears burned her eyelids, but they did not fall until she stood once more where she and Maximilian had so lately been together. There she had sat, at the piano, while he had bent over her, and she had been happy. How little she had guessed the humiliation that was to come! How could she bear it, and how could she live out the years of her life after this?
She paused in the embrasure of the window, her little fingers fiercely clutching the heavy curtain, as she gazed through a mist at the picture called up by the open piano. Then a sob tore its way from her heart to her lips. "Cruel – cruel!" she stammered, half aloud. "What agony – what an insult! Ah, well, the dream's ended now."
Dashing the tears away to clear her vision, with desperation that must vent itself somehow, she flung the curtain aside and would have moved out into the room beyond, had not her gesture revealed the presence of a figure wrapped in the folds of velvet.
Some one else was there in the embrasure of the window – some one was hiding, and had been spying. Dark as it was behind the satin-lined velvet curtain, she must have seen a form pressed back into the shadow, had not her eyes been blinded by her tears.
Now, her first impulse was for flight – anything to escape without recognition; but a second quick thought brought a change of mood. Whoever it was, had been watching, was already informed that Miss de Courcy had come in weeping, after a tête-à-tête with the Emperor. She must know who it was with whom she had to deal.
Sylvia had taken a step out into the room, as she flung back the curtain and touched the warm shape behind it. Wheeling suddenly round, she snatched the screen of velvet away and stood face to face with Captain von Markstein.
It was a crucial moment for him. Quailing under the lash of her glance, bereft of his presence of mind, he caught at any chance for self-justification. The girl had come back by a different path from the one he had watched; she had rushed in like a whirlwind, without giving him the opportunity for escape which he had reasonably expected. If he stood waiting her condemnation, he was lost; he must step into the breach at whatever risk. No time to weigh words; the first which sprang to his tongue must be let loose.
"Don't think evil of me, Miss de Courcy!" he stammered, still groping for some excuse, in the cotton-wool which seemed to stuff his brains.
"I do not think at all." She held her head proudly; her eyes accused him and belied her words. With a swift step, she would have passed him, and he would have done well to let her go; but he had caught a whisper of inspiration from his evil genius. To turn the shame of this defeat to victory, to pose as hero instead of spy this was an ending to the game worth the throw of all his dice. So seemed to say something in his ear, and drunk with vanity he flung himself before her.
"I beg of you to think," he cried. "I will not be misjudged. No man could stand still under the look in your eyes and not defend himself, if he were innocent. Your face says 'spy'."
"You have read your own meaning there! Pray let me go."
"One moment first. You shall listen. I confess I knew you were in the garden with one whom we need not name To break in upon such a tête-à-tête, for a man of my inferior rank, would be almost a crime, yet I would have committed that crime to save you. You are so innocent, so beautiful – I feared for you; I suspected – what I know now from your words has happened. I would have saved you this pain, if I could – but I was too late, only in time to see you coming in, to hear against my will – your exclamation. I waited to say that I can at least avenge you. I am at your service – your knight as in days of old. Tell me what you would have me do, and I will do it."
If Sylvia's eyes had been daggers, he would have fallen dead at her feet. For an instant she looked at him in silence. Then: "I would have you leave me, never to dare come into my presence again," she said. "And now I choose to pass."
Mechanically he gave way, and she swept by, with lifted head and the proud bearing of an offended queen.
Otto was stricken dumb. Dully he watched her move across the long room to the door which led out into a corridor, not through the drawing- room. He saw the changing lights and shadows on her satin dress, as she passed under the chandelier; he saw the reflection of its whiteness mirrored on the polished floor. She was beautiful to him no longer, for he hated her because of his mistake, and because she had read his mind. She had seen the truth there, under his falsehoods, as he saw the reflection on the surface of shining oak. She knew that he was a moral coward, and that, had she accepted his fantastic offer, he would never have ventured to enter the lists as her knight against the Emperor. Fortunately, she had undoubtedly quarrelled with Maximilian, and would not carry tales. It would indeed be a sorry day for Otto if reconciliation ever came; and if by some strange chance of the future it seemed imminent, he must not let it come.
"Heavens! Does she fancy herself an Empress?" he sneered beneath his breath. "Before Eberhard has finished with her, she may not even be what she is now!"
His ears still burned as if she had struck them. He could not return to the drawing-room until they had cooled. There was no hope for him now with Mary de Courcy, whatever the Chancellor's mysterious telegrams might contain, but he was too furious to mourn over lost hopes, lost opportunities. Eberhard was evidently trying to learn something to the girl's disadvantage and Otto's aid was only to have been bought in case of failure. Now, he was in a mood to offer it for nothing, and it occurred to him that he would ride over to Schloss Markstein early in the morning.
CHAPTER X
"THE EMPEROR WILL UNDERSTAND"
IT was for the refuge of isolation that Sylvia fled to her own room. Between her bedchamber and the Grand Duchess's was a boudoir, which they shared; and it was the door of this intermediate room that gave admittance, from the corridor outside, to both. To the girl's surprise, as she entered – her one comfort the assurance of being undisturbed – her mother looked reproachfully up from a pile of silken cushions on the sofa. Josephine was rubbing her hands, and the air was pervaded with the pungent fragrance of sal volatile.
"I thought you were never coming!" ejaculated the Grand Duchess. If she noticed her daughter's pallor, she believed it due to anxiety about herself.
Sylvia stared, half dazed, unable yet to separate her mind from her own private misfortunes.
"Never coming!" she echoed mechanically. "Why – are you ill – did you expect me?"
"I nearly fainted downstairs," returned the Grand Duchess, "and it is entirely your fault. You ought not to have exposed me, at my age, to such terrible shocks. Josephine, you can go."
Sylvia grew as cold as ice. She could think of but one explanation. Otto von Markstein had not been the only spy. Somehow, news of what had happened in the garden had reached the Grand Duchess, reducing her to this extremity. The Princess was scarcely conscious of hearing the door close after the banished Josephine, yet instinctively she waited for the click of the latch. "How did you know?" she asked dully.
"How did I know? I had a telegram. A most alarming, disconcerting telegram. The question is, how did you know that I knew, and how did you – did I – oh, I am so distressed, I hardly know anything!"
The word "telegram" showed Sylvia that somehow, somewhere, misunderstanding had entered in. Her mother's fretful complaints pried among her nerves like hot wires; yet could she have believed it, the new pain was the best of counter-irritants.
"Are you suffering still, dear?" she questioned, carefully controlling her voice. With the Grand Duchess, it was always best to go back to the beginning, not to attempt picking up loose ends in the middle; thus, one sooner reached the end of a tangle.
"Yes, I am ill; very ill indeed. Did no one tell you, no one send you to me, as I asked?"
"I have seen no one since I left you – no one, that is, who could tell me anything. Won't you tell – now?"
The Grand Duchess pointed a plump, dimpled forefinger toward a sixteenth-century writing-table. "The telegram's there, if you care to see it," she remarked crossly. She did not often lose her temper, or at least, not for long; but she had really borne a great deal of late, and, as she had observed, it was all Sylvia's fault, therefore it was Sylvia's turn to suffer now.
On the desk lay a crumpled piece of paper. Sylvia picked it up and read, written in English:
"Somebody making inquiries here about De Courcys. Beg to advise you immediately to explain all, or leave present place of residence; avoid almost certain unpleasantness. Have just heard of complications. – WEST."
"Well, what do you think of that?" irritably demanded the Duchess, vexed at Sylvia's calmness. "Isn't it enough to make any one faint? That I —I, a woman in my position should be forced to appear a – er – an adventuress! If it were not so dreadful, it would be absurd. You might show a little feeling, since it is for you that I have done it all."
"I have plenty of feeling, mother," said Sylvia. "Only I – seem somehow rather stunned just now. I suppose Lady West means that busy bodies have been trying to find out things about the De Courcys. We have provided for most contingencies, but we had not thought of spies —till to-night."
"I allowed myself to be led by you," declared the Grand Duchess, "when I ought to have controlled you, as my child. I should never have allowed myself to be placed in such an ignominious plight. But here I am, in it; and here you are also – which is quite as bad, if not worse. You have brought us into this trouble, Sylvia; the least you can do is to get us out. And, after all" – brightening a little – "there is, thank goodness, a way to do that. It ought not to be so very difficult."
"What way – do you mean?"
"I wonder you ask – since there is only one. Stop this foolish child's game that you have deluded me into playing; explain everything to the Emperor and to Baroness von Lynar, and be prepared to turn the tables on our enemy whoever that may be. Your dear father always said that I had a head for emergencies, once I could get the upper hand of my nerves, and I hope – I think, he was right."
"But what you propose is impossible, mother."
Sylvia spoke in a low, constrained voice, and the Grand Duchess, rising from among her pillows, suddenly observed for the first time that there was something strange in the girl's manner and appearance. She admired her daughter, as a bewildered hen-mother might admire the beautiful, incomprehensible ball of golden fluff that sails calmly away beyond her control in a terrifying expanse of water, while she herself can only cluck protest from the bank. The Grand Duchess had almost invariably yielded her will to Sylvia's in the end; but she told herself that she had done so once too often, and the weaknesses of her past buttressed her obstinacy in the present.
"I tell you it isn't impossible," she exclaimed. "It can't be impossible, when it's the only way left to save our dignity. We mustn't let our enemies have the first move. You meant to make a sort of dramatic revelation, sooner or later. Well, it must be sooner, that is all, my dear."
"Ah, I meant – I meant!" echoed Sylvia, the sound of a sob in her voice. "Nothing has happened as I meant, mother. You were right; I was wrong. We ought never to have come to Rhaetia."
The Grand Duchess's heart gave a thump. If Sylvia were thus ready to admit herself in the wrong, without a struggle, then matters must indeed have reached an alarming pass. Not a jest; not a single flippancy! The poor lady was seriously distressed.
"Not – come – to – Rhaetia?" she repeated as incredulously as if she had not herself lately made the same assertion. "Why – why – what – "
"I scarcely know how to tell you," said Sylvia, with lowered lashes. "But I suppose I must."
"Of course you must. I thought you looked upset. You were with him– in the music-room. Yes; I remember. Did you try to explain, and he – was it as I feared, only this evening before dinner? Wouldn't he forgive the decep – "
"He knows nothing about it."
"Well, what then? Don't keep me in suspense. I've had enough to try me without that." And the Grand Duchess raised a little jewelled vinaigrette to her nostrils. It had been given her by Queen Victoria, and was particularly supporting in a time of trial.
Sylvia's lips were so dry that she found difficulty in articulating. There were some things it was extremely embarrassing to tell one's mother.
"We – went out into the garden – to see the moon – or something," she managed to begin. "He asked me to be – his wife. Oh – wait, wait, please! Don't say anything yet! I didn't know what to make of it, and – he had to explain. He put it as inoffensively as he could, but – oh! mother, I – I was only good enough to be his morganatic wife!"
The storm had burst at last. There had always been mental and temperamental barriers between the parent and child; but, after all, a mother is a mother; and nothing better has ever been invented yet. Sylvia fell on her knees by the sofa, and, burying her head in her mother's lap, sobbed as if parting with her youth.
The Grand Duchess thought of the last time when the girl had so knelt beside her, the bright hair under her caressing hand; and the contrast between then and now brought motherly tears to her eyes. That time had been in the dear old river garden at Richmond, when Sylvia had coaxed away her promise to help forward this very scheme – this disastrous, miserable, mad scheme. Poor little Sylvia, so young, so inexperienced, so thoroughly girlish for all her naughty obstinacy and recklessness, sweet and loving and impulsive! The child had been so full of hope then; why, only a few hours ago, she had said she was the happiest creature on earth!
All the Grand Duchess's resentment melted away as she rocked the sobbing girl in the comfortable cradle of her arms, murmuring and crying over her – the hen-mother, over the golden duckling that had ventured into water too rough and treacherous.
"There, there, dear," she crooned. "It isn't so very dreadful; not half as bad as you made me think. I'm sure he meant well. It showed, at any rate, that he loved you. Just at first, it came as rather a shock, of course, knowing who we are; but if you had really been Miss de Courcy, I suppose – I suppose it would have been a great compliment."
"I call it an insult; I called it so to him," gasped Sylvia in the midst of sobs.
"Oh, dear me, not as bad as that – not at all! Many ladies of very high standing have been in such positions, and every one has thoroughly respected them. Though, of course, such a thing would never do for you; you must reflect that Maximilian couldn't know that."
"He ought to have known – known that I would never consent. That no woman with English blood in her veins would ever consent. It was an insult. It has shown how poor was his estimate of me. It was – it was! It has broken my heart. It has killed me. Oh, mother, it's all at an end – everything I lived for. I can never bear to see him after this."
"You'll feel differently to-morrow, pet," purred the Grand Duchess, smoothing the tumbled waves of yellow hair.
"Never!"
"You are too young to fully understand the etiquette of Courts. Remember, his point of view is different from yours."
"That is the reason I am so miserable. His point of view is hateful. I want to go away – to go away at once."
Her earnest emphasis forced conviction. She really meant it. This was no girlish whim, to be repented in a few hours, a lovers' quarrel, to be made up to-morrow. The Grand Duchess's kindly face, already deeply clouded, was utterly obscured in gloom. The small features seemed lost behind their expression of distress.
"But surely you will tell him the truth, or let me, and give him a chance to – to speak again? Now, more than ever – "
"What good would it do? Everything is spoiled. Of course, if he knew I were Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald, he would be sorry for what had happened, even if he thought I had brought it all on myself. But that would be too late to mend anything. Don't you see, don't you understand, that I valued his love because it was given to me, just me, not the Princess? If he said, 'Now that I know you are Sylvia, I can have the pleasure of offering my right, instead of my left hand to you, as my wife, and everything can be very pleasant and regular,' I should not care for that at all. No, we must go home, mother; and the Emperor Maximilian of Rhaetia must be informed that Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald has decided not to marry. That will be our one revenge – the only one we can have – that little slap in the face to His Imperial Majesty; so pitiful a slap, since he will never know that Princess Sylvia who won't marry him, and Miss de Courcy who can't, are one and the same. But, mother, I did love him – I did love him so!"
"Then forget and forgive – and be happy, while you can."
"I can't. I've just told you why. Oh, do let us make our plans to get out of this hateful house as soon as possible."
The Grand Duchess resigned herself to the inevitable, and only a deep sigh told the tale of the effort resignation cost her. For once she was expected to take the initiative, and the responsibility was a stimulant; this one consolation was left her.
"Well," she said, after a moment's abstruse reflection, "the telegram will give us an excuse. I was so overcome on reading it that I had to sit down again after getting suddenly up from my chair and borrow the Baroness's smelling-salts – poor, inadequate Rhaetian stuff. Every one was alarmed, and I explained, without going into particulars, that I had received most disturbing news from England. Directly I felt more like myself, I came upstairs, requesting that you should be sent to me, when you returned – though you were not to be specially called. I begged the Baroness not to be anxious, but she said that, before she went to bed, I really must allow her to stop at the door and inquire how I was. We might say to her that the telegram had compelled our immediate return to England."
"Listen," whispered Sylvia. "There's someone at the door now."
She sprang to her feet, and, with the marvellous facility for meeting a conventional emergency possessed by all women in palace or tenement, between the time of rising and walking to the door, she had conquered the disorder of her countenance. Her hair was smoothed back into perfection; the laces on her dress had fallen into their original old graceful lines; her face, though flushed, would show no sign of tears in the softly shaded light.
Sylvia herself opened the door and gracefully besought the inquiring Baroness to come in. Immediately after the scene in the garden, she could not have done this so quietly; but she had cried her heart out now, and reviled the offender to a sympathetic audience, thus facilitating the return of self-control. Even if the Baroness von Lynar guessed that she had been weeping, it would only be put down to the score of that mysterious "bad news."
"How good of you!" breathed the Grand Duchess, with a less coherent undertone of appreciation from Sylvia. "Oh, yes, thank you, so much better; quite well again, though still very anxious. Somebody must have been kind enough to tell dear Mary, for here she is, you see; and she and I have been talking matters over. We are quite desolated at breaking our delightful visit suddenly short, but unluckily it can't be helped. This unfortunate news from home! We must positively not lose an hour in returning."