Chapter VII: Part II: I (2)

Alexandra took her Count firmly by the arm and pushed him into a chair. “You don’t look very strong,” she said, “and you will faint if you are not careful.” Her own knees were trembling as she took the chair beside him, but she proceeded coolly, “What an infant you are to be taken in by the cleverest man in Europe--”

“He is the greatest man living,” stammered Zrinyi. “This is a great moment in the history of Hungary, mademoiselle. It should be painted and hung beside Munkacsy’s _Árpád_, or the _Sally of Zrinyi from Szigetvár_. He is the man for us!--the man for us!”

“I don’t doubt every mustache in Budapest will stand on end to-morrow. What a pity you have none.”

“Mademoiselle!” he cried, outraged at her flippancy; but she was moving away.

She had looked once at Ranata during William’s speech. The Archduchess, as the Hungarians pushed forward, had withdrawn from the Emperor’s side and stood leaning against the wall, her head bent, her arms rigid. Her face was expressionless, but, Alexandra commented, her hair had never looked so red.

William, as the King, experiencing satiety, led the way to the reception-rooms, turned his head rapidly in all directions, taking a final survey of the scene of his latest triumph. His glance roved over faces angry, approving, terrified, adoring; encountered the amused stare of the American with haughty indifference, then rested suddenly on the face of his young hostess. The Archduchess had dropped her mask. Her head was thrust forward, deliberately waiting for the moment when William’s eyes must meet hers. When they did they lingered. The Hapsburg’s eyes blazed with a hatred so implacable, with a defiance so reckless and contemptuous, that the Almighty’s best-beloved experienced a shock. It seemed to him, for the first time in his triumphant career, that he heard the steel of another will clash menacingly with his own. Sustained in his dizziest flights by his honest belief in his earthly mission, insolently aware that he had the best brain in the royal hierarchy, the most splendid energy, a capacity for work never surpassed, he was fully convinced that he had but to develop his gifts, use all his vigilance and what patience he could find in him, to realize his vast ambitions. But for the moment, in the presence of another human will, and that the will of a woman, he experienced a chill rising of the imperial flesh. He forgot his majesty, flung his head high like an irritated stallion, glared back his defiance, and jerked his eyes away. In a moment he was reminded of his manners.

“Your arm, your Majesty,” said the cold voice of his hostess; and in silence, but with an impressive exhibition of royal self-control, they walked side by side through the first circle-room into the blue drawing-room. He was mightily uncomfortable, however, for in some subtle feminine way she made him feel as if she were towering above him by nearly a foot. It seemed to him that she grew an inch with every step, that her little crown of black pearls was rising higher and higher; and when he finally shot an apprehensive glance upward, almost laughing aloud at his folly, he was relieved to find that her nose was still on a level with his brow. But she was making the most of her height, which, with the diadem on her lofty head and the immense train dragging behind her, would have made a man of her own inches look insignificant. It is doubtful if William ever breathed deeper relief than when, a few moments after arriving in the drawing-room, he was informed that the carriages were waiting to take himself and his suite to the train, and that he must make his adieux.

The guests had scattered through the long line of rooms. Many went out upon the balcony to watch the royal carriages and mounted escort cross the illuminated bridge, and the roar of cheering thousands seemed storming the hill. The royal party retired almost immediately, and Alexandra followed the Archduchess to the sitting-room of her private apartments. Ranata’s ladies had been dismissed, and she had closed the dressing-room door on her tire-women. She was standing alone at the window sobbing convulsively. The room was ringing with _Vivats_ and _Élyens_, for it was too hot to close the windows.

Alexandra pushed her into a chair, removed the pins and pearls from the heavy mane of hair, and sprayed her head and wrists with cologne. In a few moments the Archduchess had commanded her tears. She threw back her head and looked down upon shouting Pest with a sullen glare.

“What wouldn’t I have given to be able to wring his neck!” she said in a moment. “How dared he! At my father’s table! What insolent cruelty--he, who need fear no one living--to come here and fling his dynamite into the weak foundations of this poor old Empire! I wish to God I were on the thrones of Austria and Hungary. I’d pit myself against him without a qualm. It would be two of our ancestors over again and joy in the fight--I believe that in one of his exalted moments he enrolled Frederick the Great among his ancestors.”

“Well,” began Alexandra, but Ranata did not hear her. She had risen and was standing in the middle of the room, her long hair flaming about her. To the American girl, her quivering slender figure looked ready for a coat-of-mail, her head for the helmet. “I can’t help admiring the brute for flinging his designs in our faces,” she exclaimed furiously. “Did my father understand? The Hungarians?--The Emperor dies. Franz Ferdinand--_Franz Ferdinand!_--succeeds him. The Empire, bound together by rotten threads, begins its disintegration with my father’s corpse. Do you remember the rapacity of Europe, that greedy horde of vultures, after the death of Charles VI.?--Frederick’s swoop upon Silesia? William, ‘in the manner of a son,’ only awaits the death of his ‘Fatherly Friend’ to devour Austria to the gates of Vienna. And Hungary? Could you not see his bait? Hungary quiescent--Hungary once more an independent kingdom, or with himself as its nominal and indulgent ruler!--Oh, for another Pragmatic Sanction!”

“I have a plan--if you will sit down quietly for a few moments and listen to me. It is a practical plan, and I know it will appeal to you.”

The Archduchess resumed her seat. “Well? Tell it to me quickly. I am panting for a practical idea. But the blood is blazing in my head.”

“William has made a deep impression on the Hungarians, and no doubt they understood him plainly enough. But impressions can be counteracted. He leaves here to-night, and your father will be in no hurry to invite him again. Do you remain here this winter, instead of returning to Vienna with the Emperor--announce that you have found no city so fascinating, that you cannot tear yourself away; entertain constantly and brilliantly; let loose all your bottled personal charm--show them that you are the sister of Rudolf; be seen in public; make a royal pilgrimage through the villages. The Hungarians resent unceasingly that the Emperor spends but a few weeks of the year in Budapest--and they look upon Austria as a mere annex of the great kingdom of Hungary. They will be flattered--your slaves; with your personality, if you will come down off your high horse, they will end by adoring you--especially if you give them a royal good time. So much for the present. When the time comes! When the time comes! When the Empire shakes and William threatens, all you will have to do will be to have a King’s Mount ready, fasten the crown of St. Stephen securely on your head, ride up the mount, and wave your sword to the four corners of the earth. All Hungary would break into deficient Latin and shout, ‘Long live our Lady and King!’ The dust of Maria Theresia would quiver at that old war-cry--and she is no more forgotten here than in Austria. You will be a fool if you throw away the greatest opportunity ever offered to a woman cursed with royal blood.”

“It would almost be like meditating an act of usurpation,” muttered the Archduchess; but her head was thrust forward, her eyes were glittering. “But the alternative!--who knows? It might be for the best. It may be my destiny. These Hungarians! There are no people in the world so easy to arouse by appealing, not to their nerves and passions, but to their chivalry and highest ideals.” She stood up again in her excitement. “Do you remember when Maria Theresia, desperate and almost helpless, with Europe sucking at every vein of the Empire, the Austrian army an army of corpses--do you remember when she came here, young, beautiful, pregnant, eloquent, and appealed to Hungary to save her, how the magnates not only went off their heads and cried that they would die for her, but inspired more than their own retainers with their enthusiasm?--until from every mountain, from regions so remote that William had never heard of them, there poured down tribes so wild and terrible that Europe fled in dismay. If Austria exists to-day, she owes it to Hungary--and no Hapsburg since Maria Theresia has ever acknowledged the debt. And again--when Napoleon bribed and my great-grandfather appealed, how they spurned the one and poured out their blood for the other--who was neither picturesque nor grateful. Throughout their history the Hungarian character has been astonishingly consistent, their nationalism has been as unwavering, in spite of conquests and immigrations, as that of your own countrymen. They are as independent as republicans and as loyal as the British. But it makes them the easier for tact and diplomacy to manage. If I convinced them that I really loved them, that I was capable of the right sort of rule--oh, go now. I will think all night. Come down early, will you?”

V

When Alexandra presented herself at the door leading to the apartments of the Archduchess at ten o’clock on the following morning, she was informed by the groom of the chambers that her Imperial Highness awaited her in the “Hungarian House.” Her arms were full of newspapers and her eyes sparkled with excitement. She ran down the little staircase just beyond the door and out upon the first terrace, blinking in the brilliant sunshine, but pausing to look at the cool gray Danube, the splendid bridges, the gay city opposite; then wandered about aimlessly for a few moments, her enjoyment still keen in the freedom of the Hungarian atmosphere, the unapproachable beauty of Buda, ancient city of kings. The hill which the palace crowns is so abrupt that its many terraces have the effect of the hanging gardens of old; and its pillared galleries of white stone, its wide and narrow flights of steps leading down the steep hill-side, through parterres of flowers or thickets of green to the great gates on the Danube, its upright unshaded lawns and winding ways lost in romantic gloom seduce the imagination away from the crimes that have been committed within the fair walls above, the prisoners that have languished in the dungeons beneath. When the most dazzling of suns floods the tremendous white front of the palace, with its carved and pillared rotunda, its straight and stately wings, the one bit of color in the crown of St. Stephen above; when the statues of kings seem quivering with life and the water of the fountain flies upward in an eager bursting of its bonds to leap outward on all sides and rush back as eagerly, in a confused and glittering mass of foam and spray, then must the most casual sojourner in the city of Pest, smoking his cigar in the shades of its corso, comprehend the proud spirit of Hungary. The royal palace of Buda is the embodiment of that pride, personal and national, the glorified symbol of a thousand years of steady and upward persistence, while battling with every misfortune that can assail a devoted nation.

“No wonder Kossuth lost his head when he was lord here for a few minutes,” thought Alexandra. “If he hadn’t--if he had sent Görgei on to Vienna--well, may I be in at the next death!”

She descended a wide flight of marble steps on the left of the palace, then another, and approached the little “Hungarian House,” built into a portion of the ancient wall, almost hidden by trees as old. It was a gay little tea-house of primitive Hungarian architecture, its inner walls decorated with panels of native embroidery, the whole effect light, Oriental, frivolous.

Two of Ranata’s ladies were reading under a tree nearby. The Archduchess was alone in the one room of the house. Her eyes were heavy. It was evident that she had slept little. They flashed, however, and she suddenly sat erect as she saw the newspapers.

“Ah!” she exclaimed sharply. “What do they say? I did not care to send for them, myself.”

Alexandra threw herself into a chair and rattled the journals viciously. “I have come to read you a few select extracts. Oh, he hit the mark--hit it in the bull’s-eye! I am told they are in such a state of enthusiasm and excitement over there that if he hadn’t left last night he wouldn’t have been able to get out of Hungary at all. Here’s the first gun: ‘The majestic words will find an echo in all parts of Hungary, which will ever remain in the debt of the great Hohenzollern, who has forever conquered the soul of every Hungarian; ... the love and gratitude of the Hungarian nation will follow the guest of our King wherever he goes.’ But that is mere rhetoric. Listen to this: ‘In every line there is so much heart and so much sympathy with the Hungarian nation, its glorious past as well as its promising future, that it seems not the language of politics only, but of a loving friend, on whose well-meaning we may ever rely! Perhaps it will give cause for reflection in those parts of the German Empire which have been prone, without cause, to cast blame upon Hungary, now that they see with how great a sympathy the German Emperor expresses himself in our behalf.’ Here is another: ‘As a political assurance it is the grandest which ever came from the lips of the Emperor William himself.... Many wounds are healed by those words, which put an end to such calumny.’ There are two more. Of course there are columns, but I have marked the significant extracts. ‘The toasts of yesterday will be written in the annals of the nation with letters of gold, and sustain and rejoice the soul of future generations. No Hungarian will read the warm and inspired words of the German Emperor without a joyful and a burning heart. No strange monarch has ever spoken to our nation with so much feeling.’ This is the last: ‘Where did the German Emperor find those colors for his palette? Why, they are our own colors! Where did he find that tune? It is the pulse of our own hearts! God bless this great monarch, who knows so well how to appreciate our striving country! We utter these words of parting to him with a never-dying gratitude!’ There you are!”

“I tasted gall with every word, but I am glad they have been printed, for they will help me to accomplish my object. I need strong arguments--my request to remain here alone will be a tremendous innovation. I shall send these to my father at once, that he may have read them before our interview. They may or may not have been shown to him. If I personally request it, he is sure to read them, no matter who is at his elbow.

“The sole consolation,” she continued after a moment, “is that William is not a Catholic. I doubt if the Hungarians would ever accept a Protestant king. Perhaps if Kossuth had been a Catholic he would have been stronger in his exile.”

“William may have to turn Catholic yet, or Socialist, to keep his throne and get all the other things he wants. Surely religion--the incidental husk of it--cannot mean much to a brain like that.”

“He would never let the Jesuits rule him,” said the Archduchess bitterly. “They have been the curse of the Hapsburgs, and their restoration constitutes Metternich’s chief claim to infamy. But their power over rulers in this enlightened age is incredible--perhaps, however, royalty is not so much enslaved by the Church as by its ancestors. Even I, to whom the Catholic Church is but one of many inherited forms, long since rejected by pride and reason--even I am sometimes the victim of that ancient sea of superstition that murmurs in the soul. I can see my father wash the feet of the poor and feel nothing but amusement. I can see him march bareheaded in the Corpus Christi procession, and only fear that he will get a sunstroke--his face was purple last June. But there are times in the cathedral, on great occasions of ceremony, when the mysterious colored dimness, the long sonorousness of priests, the glorified pageant, the divine music, and the intoxicating incense seem to liberate all the ghosts in my soul and send them to my head. Then I have a confused sensation of being in a past century--old doors are opened, old ecstasies, terrors, desires, creep forth. I long to prostrate myself and grovel, to scourge myself into a spiritual delirium, to feel the foot of the Church on my neck. Then creep out the old lusts of cruelty, of tyranny, of torture--what a mere ghost of power a civilized monarch has to-day! Can you imagine that there have been moments in my life when I regretted that?--when, under the spell of Holy Church, I have, for a moment, been a composite of the worst of my ancestors?”

“You are always picturesque, and you always make me rejoice that I am an American and not descended in the royal line. But I am astonished that you ever permit your reason, your personality, to be submerged in such a fashion! I should think if there was one woman who could seal up her ancestors and leave them to moulder where they belong, it was yourself. You are not morbid, except in erratic, incidental, ancestral streaks.”

“I don’t think I am morbid in the usual sense, for I have too good an appetite and take too much exercise. But I am bound to have deeps and fissures in my soul, for the centuries have cut them there; and what _must_ be in them sometimes affects my imagination. And my ancestors have a curious fascination for me--the idea that they may or may not have the power to shape the destinies of the living. There have been moments when I have been disposed to prostrate myself amid the remains of their mortal part in the crypt and demand their intercession. Did you know that Maria Theresia used to make her daughters, on the eve of marriage, go down into the crypt alone at night and pray among the coffins of their ancestors? There have been times--very rarely--when that idea has appealed to me with an almost irresistible force.”

“For Heaven’s sake stay here in Budapest, where you can live in the sun. You have grown mouldy in the Hofburg this last year, and your ancestors have had it all their own way. I thought you had got over that sort of nonsense long ago. This is the result of William and a sleepless night.”

The Archduchess laughed. “Perhaps. I am willing to suppose that my predecessors have troubled me less all these years than they might have done without the fatal antidote of your American humor. Nevertheless, I have no right to be faithless to them, and I would not forget them if I could. And I find them much more satisfactory to contemplate than most of my living relatives, who, as a rule, have neither morals nor brains.”

“I agree with you there. When Death lays his iron hand upon a mortal’s power to bore, his virtues rise and sit upon the corpse. That is the secret of the superstition which makes us think kindly of the dead. Do you mind if I read a letter from Fess? I have been too excited even to open it.”

“Pray do.” Ranata smiled with both sympathy and interest. Then she sighed. “I believe your brother is the only person I envy--I mean the only person I’d be if some fairy would bid me choose. He has his destiny in his own hands. He has done such wonderful things! He is famous and powerful; his future holds the most astounding possibilities--and he is only thirty-one! Oh, your America! Where will you stop? And what will you do to poor old Europe?”

“Now you’re talking! Come down out of your niche, with the worm-eaten past behind it, and identify yourself with us. Therein lies your only salvation. William and my brother have some great scheme on foot; I don’t know what, but I know that much from a few words I happened to overhear between Fess and my father. William and Fessenden! They could turn the world upside down if they chose! Well?”

The Archduchess was leaning forward, her eyes blazing. “An alliance between William and your brother?” she exclaimed. She composed herself with a manifest effort, and added: “It is really remarkable--I know your father and Mrs. Abbott so well, and yet your brother--I have never seen him--not even his picture. You say those cuts in the newspapers during your war with Spain--”

“Were probably a composite of Roosevelt, John Jacob Astor, and Cervera. Fess, like my father, has never had his picture taken. He hasn’t the patience, and says he has no desire to display his weak side to the world--that the weak side of a man is more likely to come out in his photographs than not. It is hardly remarkable that you have not met him. First those years in South America, putting blood and iron in place of wind inside the Monroe Doctrine; since then he has had too much to do at home to come to Europe, except for two months in summer, when he brings a canoe and a knapsack. About his only other recreation has been the Spanish War. But this letter has the Berlin postmark. I thought he had gone back. Let me see what he has to say.”

She glanced through the short letter. “He is not going back at present. He has one of his periodical attacks of disgust for business and details, and will tramp over here for a month or two longer.”

“Ask him to come here--to Budapest,” said the Archduchess sweetly. “It is high time we met. And as he is the most distinguished of young Americans, I should like him to be one of my court. I intend to have the illustrious of all sorts about me here, in art, in letters, in music, and irrespective of noble birth. I intend to show Europe what a court should be.”

“You _have_ thought it out! And the Emperor? Are you sure? It is my turn to have misgivings. He will see many objections. There is no one so rigid in his traditions.”

“I shall stay,” said Ranata shortly. “He would never go so far as to follow some illustrious examples and shut me up. If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll threaten to go to America and live there.”

“Good! At last my seeds are showing their little green heads. Now I know you will succeed in whatever you put your brain to. You may count on me. I’ll even engage to help you alienate Fessenden’s affections from William, and he is devoted to him.”

VI

The private apartments of the King, at the southwestern extremity of the palace, correspond with the suite on the southeastern corner, which had been furnished for his wife, and was now occupied by Ranata. He had sent his daughter word that he would receive her alone at four o’clock, and when she was announced he was standing on the balcony, looking down into the distant street behind the palace. There were excited groups of people in the street, and he guessed of what they talked. From the many old houses, fine and simple, on the still loftier hill which faced him, and from neighboring slopes above and about, from the villas on the precipitous heights of the Schwabenberg, the flags still floated, and it seemed to him that the German outnumbered the Austrian in the ratio of three to one. As he turned to greet his daughter, she saw that his face was more harassed than usual, but he advanced with the grace and courtesy which, even in his old age, were unsurpassed in Europe. The years which had robbed his heavy Hapsburg features of what beauty youth may have lent them had spared his light erect figure, his exquisite hands and feet. His genial eyes kindled at sight of Ranata, but he kissed her lightly and handed her to a chair. Had she been born twenty years earlier she might have been his idol, and as it was he admired no woman more and was proud of her. But not only had misfortunes, humiliations, reverses of every sort, and the cruellest personal afflictions that in number and degree have ever assailed a monarch atrophied his heart, but he feared to find even the eidola of happiness in this gifted creature, lest the knife be driven into the responsive breast and his own earthly expiation of the sins of all his ancestors be the more complete. His ancient habit of temperate affection for his older and married daughters excited no misgivings. But if Ranata had never been permitted to know him intimately enough to love him, she sympathized with and admired him. If enthusiasm, hope, passion, were dead within him, he was equally without bitterness, without resentment, without jealousy, and in theory, at least, without indifference to the least of his subjects. Even the cruel insult of the day before had not stirred him to anger. He had lost and lost and lost from the day he had ascended the throne, and the driving of Austria from the Germanic Confederation, and substitution in supremacy of Prussia, must forever be associated with his name. In William’s brief career Germany had been reorganized, strengthened, incredibly promoted in industrial importance. William received an occasional snub and reminder that he was two-thirds mortal, but to associate the idea of failure with him was as unthinkable as to imagine him in the robes of a monk praying for humility. Personally the Emperor and King could afford to pass his pyrotechnics by with a smile, but there was more to consider than his own sensations, and he was meditating an early retreat that he might consult with his Austrian ministers.

The room, with its olive walls and its lowered awnings, was cool and dim, but Ranata deliberately rose and placed her chair where the light would fall fullest upon her. Then she turned her powerful gray eyes on the Emperor, and he moved slightly; like the rest of the world, he usually saw his daughter’s eyes through their lashes, and it was now at rare intervals that he was reminded of the problem of his youngest born. He suddenly remembered that when he was, the laurels fell from his brow, and involuntarily he braced himself.

“I need not ask you, sir,” began Ranata, “if you recognized the calculation under William’s impetuosity last night. There is no doubt that he made the deepest possible impression on the Hungarians, that, if present conditions continue, no other subject will be discussed for months to come in this dissatisfied country, even to its remotest villages. At first I was merely humiliated, enraged, terrified. But I have thought all night, sir, and I have reached the conclusion that I have it in my power not only to obliterate the impression he has made, but to create one deeper and more persistent. His, he may not have the opportunity of renewing--you certainly are under no obligation to ask him here again. This is my plan: let me live here and keep the Hungarians, from magnates to peasants, constantly reminded of the great love they bear you. If I can make them love me, so much stronger will the bond be between this restive country and Austria.” She leaned forward and spoke as solemnly as if taking an oath of allegiance. “I know that if I am given my way I can preserve this state to the Empire, avert the calamity which all Europe expects to follow your death. I am willing to pledge every hour of my life to this great mission. I believe that every human being is put on earth to be of use in some form or other. Assuredly usefulness--to the uttermost moment--is demanded of us. So far I have accomplished no destiny whatever, and I do not for a moment believe that I had so many of the characteristics of my house concentrated in me for no purpose--although in endeavoring to find reconciliation to my lot I have sometimes argued myself into a belief of the blind law of cause and effect. But I do not believe in it. I am here for a purpose, and the time has come for the accomplishment of that purpose. _I will not marry._ I am quite well aware that it is your intention to arrange an alliance for me before my thirtieth birthday; but there is no mortal power, sir, that can force me to the altar. I make no threats. I have no intention of resorting to any desperate measures. I am strong enough in myself. I simply will not marry. But I now represent a sinful waste of high usefulness. Moreover, the emptiness and monotony of my life have become quite unbearable. I ask that I may be permitted to exert, for the good of my country, the best of those qualities which have come to me from yourself and my ancestors.”

The Emperor stared at her for a moment without speaking. He was as astonished as it was in his power to be at anything. Then he gave her the answer she expected.

“It is a subject for deep thought on my part, my dear child. A week from to-day I will give you my decision. Meanwhile there is no reason why you should not remain here if you desire it.” Then, as Ranata merely continued to transfix him with her determined eyes, he continued hastily: “It is a great and generous idea, and I am much gratified to learn that you take so deep an interest in your house. I had thought you absorbed in books and horses. But are you sure you would not pine in this strange country? Remember, you would be obliged to send all your Austrian ladies home, and surround yourself with Hungarians. I, as you know, hardly dare to bring an aide among these people, so fierce in their national pride. The women are as proud as the men, and very independent, quite unused now to leadership of any sort. Every Hungarian woman in the higher aristocratic circles is a sort of queen, is a social law unto herself. You are accustomed to the courtier, to the flexible--”

“I am sick of it! And as tact is one of the prerogatives of royalty, I hope you will give me credit for my share. As for being lonesome, nothing on this earth can ever approach the suicidal ennui I have experienced in the Hofburg. As for Schönbrunn, I loathe the sight of it. This change is necessary, sir. Moreover, Alexandra will be with me. And if there were drawbacks--do you think your daughter is the person to consider trifles when a great object is to be gained?”

The Emperor’s eyes happened to rest on her hair. It flamed against his green walls. “Red-haired women are dangerous,” he thought. “It is well to keep them occupied. Why on earth doesn’t she marry?” Aloud he repeated, “A week from to-day, Ranata, you shall have my answer.”

Ranata, having spent her first round, was content to retire. She knew that a definite answer was not to be thought of until the Emperor had asked the advice of his ministers. “But the idea made an impression on him, no doubt of that,” she informed Alexandra, whom she met in the garden. “And so did I. If I didn’t tell him I would stay here whether or no, I don’t think he has any doubt of my intention. If he won’t give his consent, I’ll spend all my money and all yours; and his refusal of the necessary allowance is the worst he would do, for he wants no more scandals. To remove me by force--and I’d leave Hungary in no other fashion--would be to make the world believe I was mad, and he has had enough of that. Besides, poor man, I made him think I should go mad if I didn’t have my head for a while.”

“We are a wicked unprincipled sex when we want our own way,” commented Miss Abbott. “But to get it--that is the main thing; especially when there is a good and great end in view.”

VII

On the following Thursday Ranata was not surprised to receive a note from her father asking her to grant an audience to his minister Count von Königsegg, who went to Budapest for the purpose.

“Now for it!” exclaimed Alexandra. “Of course he’s brought a corkscrew. Are your brain-cells hermetically sealed?”

“His corkscrew will do him no good. Nevertheless, I feel a certain apprehension--feminine, I suppose. He is the one person who has done me the honor to believe that I might play with politics in a manner to disconcert his clever manipulation of my father, and I have shown my dislike of him by ignoring his existence, as far as possible. He detests me; nevertheless, if I am able to convince him that I have no purpose behind the one I have advanced, I believe he will make no opposition to my plan: he has no desire to see William in the Hofburg and himself in obscurity. He will not have the least objection to using me--he is the sort to feel quite sure that a woman can be disposed of the moment a man sees fit. But if he thought that I had any ulterior design--”

“Try American diplomacy on him if you get in too deep--speak out bluntly and agitate his guile. Let him squirm himself into a corner, and then tell him to speak out or get out.”

“I sometimes feel half an American,” said the Archduchess Ranata Theresia.

Down the long front of the southeast wing of the palace is a suite of some ten or twelve rooms, large and small, beginning with the private dining-room and finishing with the red reception-room. The yellow Throne Room, or Great Hall of Ceremonies, runs parallel, occupying the width of the circle-room and audience-chamber, which flank it at one end, and of the circle-room and blue drawing-room of its southern termination. From this last circle-room opens another, which in turn leads to the private apartments occupied by the Queen of Hungary when there is one. The windows of these apartments, closed during the clouded last years of Elizabeth’s life and since her death, were now open to the sun; the hangings were losing their musty odor, and the numerous belongings of Ranata had already obliterated the little individualities of the Empress. Ranata, whose strong soul had little in common with the unhappy woman who had permitted life to crush her, had tender pity for her mother’s memory, but no great amount of sentiment. Not only were the rooms dingy and oppressive, but her own individuality was too strong to exist comfortably in surroundings stamped throughout many years by that of another; she had made up her mind that the day after her father’s decision, whatever it might be, she should refurnish the four rooms of her suite; and when the Emperor’s letter arrived they were full of stuffs, sent up from Pest for the approval of her Imperial Highness. Some pieces of curious brocade were pinned into the panels, and the dusty old rugs had vanished. The girls, ordered to remain in strict seclusion during this week of deliberation, had entertained themselves in their own fashion.

“I cannot receive him here,” said the Archduchess, when she received the humble petition of the great minister for an audience. “Besides, I don’t want to. If I could help it no one should set foot in my personal surroundings--atmosphere--who was even uncongenial to me.”

“It is a family failing,” said Alexandra dryly. “But I always admired Ludvig for putting his head out of the window when he had to have his tooth pulled rather than have the royal atmosphere polluted by a dentist. It may have been uncomfortable for both, but it was magnificently consistent.”

“I am not Ludvig, and I have no intention of making a fool of myself,” replied the Archduchess, also with some dryness. “I’ll receive him in the tea-room; I like the blue walls. Shall I wear black or white? I look more imposing in black.”

“Oh, look your guileless best--white, by all means.”

Therefore, Ranata caused herself to be arrayed in a bewildering gown of a pellicular Eastern stuff, much embroidered, and billowing about her feet in the fashion of the moment. She wore her heavy hair in a gold net, and a string of pearls about her throat, exposed to the base. She looked girlish, if not ingenuous, and very lovely.

The Archduchess Maria Leopoldina, Obersthofmeisterin, or Grand Stewardess, of Ranata’s Household, together with one of the ladies-in-waiting, the Lectrice, and Alexandra, disposed themselves just beyond the door of the tea-room as the carriage which had been sent for the minister appeared on the bridge below the palace.

“It is fearfully hot, and he’s probably cross,” said Alexandra from the balcony. “Better begin with iced coffee and predispose him to amiability of a sort.”

And thus it came about that the subtle and wary minister tarried for a few moments beneath the youthful presentment of his sovereign in the brave uniform of the Hungarian Hussars, while four women smiled upon him and flattered him with many little attentions. Then he went in to his fate.

Ranata had carefully arranged her features before the mirror, and had succeeded in banishing the expression of haughty dislike evoked by the mere mention of her enemy. When he entered her presence her eyes were half closed as usual, but their visible surface was soft. She dared not receive him with cordiality, but a frank admission of an enemy’s stewardship of the plums she desired involved a certain amount of graciousness.

“This is very kind, your Excellency,” she said gently, giving him her hand to kiss. “Had you permitted any one else to bring me the Emperor’s decision, I should still have been tortured by many doubts; but now I shall know my fate at once.” She leaned forward slightly and deepened her emphasis, her lashes lifting a little. “Of course I shall abide by what you and my father think best; but remember it is little less than life or death to me. No one knows better than you the dreary monotony of the lives of royal women. You know how my mother stood it! You who know men, and must know women so well, must have suspected that had it not been for the constant scandals which seem to be the peculiar curse of my house, I might have taken my life in my own hands before this; but the very years of suppression I have endured, ordered by a sense of duty to the dynasty, has strengthened and deepened that feeling until it rules my life. Now, for the first time, I have had an inspiration, which, if permitted me to act upon, will fill my days with no dishonor to my house. Of the good I may accomplish by remaining here I will not insult your understanding by dwelling upon. But, although we never seem to have been friends, I am so well aware that I am now in your power that I have given you this glimpse of my inner self--so be merciful,” she added, as if with an attempt at playfulness, while a smile rippled through her eyelashes.

For a moment the minister did not reply. He was not a man easy to nonplus, but he had come to test his strength with the haughtiest woman in the Empire, and he found himself staring at the loveliness of a softly impassioned girl. He had come to flatter, and his very spine thrilled at subtle compliments delivered in a voice whose cold music had become as sweet as a harp some one was playing in a distant chamber. He had come to sound with the elastic skill of time-honored methods, and his scornful Archduchess had thrown wide a window of her soul and left him blinking. He had entered with the smile and the supple backbone of the courtier, but quite aware that he might retire with his tail between his legs, and a fully matured enmity in his fertile brain. He was by no means sure of her even now, and he studied her face--she had lowered her eyes that he might; but there is no influence so potent, no wine so heady, as the flattery of royalty to courtier. And the--perhaps unconscious?--flattery of this woman of all women, of whose coldness those nearest to her complained, seemed to rise like a rosy mist to his brain. He swept it back, however; there was too much at stake. Although he did not hate her as much as she imagined, for he was philosophical where women were concerned, he had recognized in her a powerful individuality, a violent will, which, if given its head, might deprive himself of the sweets of existence.

“I am deeply flattered and grateful, your Imperial Highness,” he said finally. “Truly, like his Majesty, I had believed you to be absorbed in the purely intellectual life--”

“Oh, I was! I was!” exclaimed the Archduchess, with sad ardor. “But pardon me.”

“His Majesty is deeply moved by an idea as great in conception as it is indicative of an ardent loyalty to the dynasty. He was overwhelmed when you advanced it, and could give you no answer at the time. But he has thought of little else since, and has deigned to consult his ministers on the subject. As it was manifestly impossible for his Majesty to return to Hungary within so short a space of time, he did me the honor to appoint me his messenger. Even my visit will probably attract more attention than is desirable, but fortunately Count Zichy had invited me for the shooting, and I have taken pains to speak freely of the ostensible object of my visit to Hungary. Of course, it is my duty to kiss your hand in passing.” He paused and looked at her with a frankness which rivalled her own. “Your Imperial Highness,” he said impressively, “personally, I am deeply in favor of your remaining here. I believe you can accomplish all you so nobly and intelligently have conceived; and the time will come when we shall have need of the strength and loyalty of Hungary! More than three hundred thousand of the army are drawn from this state, and there are no better fighters in Europe. It is quite true that the seat of government should be in this division of the Empire, which is little less in area than all the other divisions put together. The Hungarians are a more progressive, enterprising, more _modern_ race than the Austrian in certain respects; on the other hand, they still have much savagery in their blood; they have been so shut out from personal competition with the higher civilizations of Europe that they have too rich a soil for the seeds of degeneration. Their very lack of morality has always been robust, and to-day the Hungarians believe the city of Budapest to be as superior to Vienna in morals as it is in industrial activity. While Austria is retrogressing, disintegrating, Hungary is progressing, has all her old virility, ambition, unconquerable patriotism. Moreover, when Ferdinand was elected King of Hungary, he promised to live here, and the Hungarians have never forgotten that promise, never ceased to resent the neglect of their capital. His Majesty’s brief compulsory annual sojourn that he may keep the letter of the Constitution which commands that the King shall spend a portion of every year in Hungary, merely exasperates them--trade as well as society. Therefore your suggestion to remain here, promptly upon the extravagant hopes raised in their imaginations by the juggling of the German Emperor, and to use your great gifts constantly to remind them of their loyalty to the dynasty, has struck me as one of the shrewdest instances of statecraft which has ever come within my experience. Perhaps”--as the Archduchess blushed and gave a delighted little exclamation--“perhaps I should say that _was_ the manner in which his Majesty’s communication impressed me. It was such an idea as might have come to Maria Theresia, wise in statecraft from her youth--but--it is true--you have never condescended to politics--apparently had not given them a thought--”

“I have certain inherited instincts. And is not the capacity to rise to an emergency also a part of my inheritance? It is true that I have taken little interest in politics. My books, my music, my out-door life, my brilliant American friend sufficed me. Being uninvited, I could not meddle in affairs of state without bringing one more calamity upon this unfortunate house; and this dynasty, I do assure you solemnly, has all the loyalty and the fealty of my soul. With this sudden idea of mine politics have nothing whatever to do. I know the current history of Europe and I know William, God forbid that I should be expected to talk politics with these Hungarians. It would be to turn the palace into bedlam, and I am accustomed to the repose of stellar voids. My only idea is to make them love me, to win to myself what they gave to Rudolf, to _increase_--I am more frank with you than with my father, and choose the word advisedly--the popularity of the dynasty. I shall entertain magnificently and constantly, give them such a winter as they have always claimed to be their right and never have had. I shall travel and make the peasantry merry. I shall give up my studies and throw myself into this programme heart and soul. But it is a purely feminine programme. If there is anything else I can accomplish, I know that your Excellency will instruct me.”

And here she proved the possession of really great talents. Pleading a necessary word with her Obersthofmeisterin, she left him alone for a few moments.

He drew a sharp but silent breath. He had never seen a woman look more like an angel, and he knew no woman in whom he was so convinced the devil made extended sojourns. He understood for the first time why she had disciplined her spirit to rise triumphant above that breadth of jaw, the grand sweeping lines of her body, above her diabolical hair; for he was too astute to question her integrity on this point. In a flash he understood why she would not marry. But ambition?--and a permanent and ever-widening outlet for that tumultuous spirit, that repressed and violent nature? Was she sincere for the moment? Had he been sure of even that he would not have hesitated to give his cordial endorsement to her plan. But he had persuaded the Emperor that unless they could be positive she meditated no act of usurpation upon the succession of her unpopular cousin, she must not be permitted a liberty with which she might even before that event plunge all Europe into war. The Emperor, who asked no more of life but peace, had told him to go to Budapest, investigate the mind of his problematical daughter, and then act in accordance with what his Majesty believed to be an unfailing judgment. What a tool she might be, his Excellency had thought. She looked like anything but a tool. It suddenly rushed upon his brain that he had never seen a woman who looked so surely born to sit upon a throne. _Why not? Why not?_ And if he were her good friend now, if he, whom she knew to be the arbiter of her destiny, if he were the one to place the sceptre within her reach--who so fitted to serve her hereafter? to rise higher and higher in power?--for this woman would take no puppet consort. Might not Europe welcome such a solution of an agitating problem? Not William, perhaps, nor Russia; but by that time William and Russia might be too occupied with each other to scramble for plums in the Austrian pie. And a young and beautiful empress, with an intelligence capable of assimilating all the statecraft her ministers chose to impart, always of imposing dignity, irreproachable, her heart and soul given to her state and people, her beauty the constant inspiration of the artist, would she not be worshipped by her subjects, and appeal to the interest and chivalry of Europe? If she had the tact to appear nobly indifferent to any such result during the lifetime of her father; if the Hungarians, immediately upon the death of their king, arose as one man and proclaimed her queen, she would tower above reproach or criticism, the most picturesque personality in the world, far more certain of holding the Dual Monarchy together than Maria Theresia with the aid of the Pragmatic Sanction; for to-day the majority of nations wanted peace and the preservation of the Austrian Empire. Franz Ferdinand might attempt a struggle for his rights, but it was more likely that the army of Austria would march to this woman than against her. It well might be that she alone could rouse England as well as Europe to defeat the designs of William. With Franz Ferdinand on the throne, war, internal and external, Königsegg believed to be as inevitable as the messenger of death in the palace of kings.

He had experienced a shock from crown to heel. The Archduchess re-entered the room and graciously asked him again to take the chair opposite hers. He commanded his eyes, but permitted his voice to tremble as he made his first cautious move.

“Your Imperial Highness--it is my bitter regret that I have never been permitted to know you before--would to God that you were a man--what a solution of all our difficulties!”

“But I am not a man,” replied the Archduchess indifferently.

“It has flashed upon me--humiliating thought to my sex!--that the greatest of the Hapsburgs was a woman.”

Ranata knew as well as he did that the greatest of the Hapsburgs was Rudolf the First, but this was not the moment to establish the claims of the dead, and she demanded, “Has it taken you all these years to make that discovery, or have you been too busy making history?” Her first words were delivered in the tones of one moved to cold analysis; her last were accompanied by an enchanting smile. She had drawn her eyelashes together, lest a flash escape; she was quite aware of what was passing in his agitated brain, and her own heart beat high.

The minister drew another long breath. He dared not express himself more plainly. He was absolutely in the dark as to whether she understood him or not. A false move and he might be the laughing-stock of the Empire. Failure to comprehend this imperial sphinx and his future might be passed in heaven or upon his estates for all the world would know or care. Muttering an obsequious request, he rose abruptly and walked down the long suite of rooms. As his back turned Ranata’s statuesque face twitched with an almost ribald mirth and her eyebrows peaked in a manner which made her look truly diabolical; but when the minister returned she looked pleading and girlish, a trifle nervous.

He stood in front of her. “Your Imperial Highness,” he said, solemnly, “I came here in much doubt, for you have never permitted me the honor of knowing you. But this brief interview--the most enlightening of my life--has convinced me of the wisdom of your plan, and of your ability to carry it out in every detail. I believe that you alone can hold Hungary to the throne when the hour comes which we dread so deeply, for there is no question that you can reduce this gallant passionate race to a state of willing slavery. Your brain will become more and more fertile with expedients; but I should be deeply honored if you would maintain a regular correspondence with me, for this is an experiment with unimaginable consequences, and I shall give it my unflagging attention. There is much I may be able to suggest to you if you will deign to permit me.”