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Show gWHMMniMIINIIMMMMMntUMHinMIMnHOMMMMIMMMMMHMMMMMMMtMMMMMHOUMMI(MMMMMMHMnHHMnHMHMK C? i l OX1P f I 7U TI4f7 V IMP5 Ma ' I i LiWi JLl V LLi II lUi flVfll JV 2 Roberts Rinehart t Copyright, 1917, by the Ridgway Company ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright, 1917, by Mary Roberts Rinehart ! ! """""""IMillMmHIMI tinMMMMMttlttnMMHMtMMMMM)MM4iltintttMtHtHMMtM)IM)MMMMHHMtH E3 CHAPTER XV Continued. 14 "It will nt be easy going for Otto," said the king, at the end of the 6hort Interview. "I should like to feel that his Interests will be looked after, not only here, but by you and yours. We have a certain element here that Is troublesome.' And Karl, with Hedwig In his mind, had promised. "His interests shall be mine, sir," he had said. He had bent over the bed then, and raised the thin hand to his lips. The Interview was over. In the anteroom the king's master of the horse, the chamberlain, and a few other gentlemen gentle-men stood waiting, talking together in low tones. But the chancellor, who had gone in with Karl and then retired, re-tired, stood by a window, with his arms folded over his chest, and waited. He put resolutely out of his mind the face of the dying man on his pillows, and thought only of this thing which he Mettlich had brought about. There was no yielding in his face or in his heart, no doubt of his course. He saw, instead of the lovers loitering In the place, a new and greater kingdom, king-dom, anarchy held down by an Iron-shod Iron-shod heel, peace and the fruits thereof, there-of, until out of very prosperity the people grew fat and content. He saw a boy king, carefully taught, growing into his responsibilities until, big with the vision of the country's welfare, he should finally ascend the throne. He saw the river filled with ships, carrying merchandise over the world and returning with the wealth of the world. Great buildings, too, lifted their heads on his horizon, a dream city, with order for disorder, and citizens instead of inhabitants. When at last he stirred and sighed, It was because his old friend, in his bed in the next room, would see nothing noth-ing of all this, and that he himself could not hope for more than the beginning, be-ginning, before his time came also. The first large dinner for months was given that night at the palace, to do King Karl all possible honor. The gold service which had been presented to the king by the czar of Russia was used, -The anticipatory gloom of the court was laid aside, and jewels brought from vaults were worn for the first time in months. Uniforms of various sorts, but all gorgeous, touched fine shoulders, and came away, bearing bear-ing white, powdor-y traces of the meeting. meet-ing. The greenhouses at the summer palace bad been sacked for flowers and plants. The corridor from the great salon to the dining hall, always a dreary passage, had suddenly become a fairy path of early spring bloom. Kven Annunciata, hung now with ropes of pearls, her hair dressed high for a tiara of diamonds, her cameos exchanged for pearls, looked royal. Proving conclusively that clutter, as to dress, is entirely a matter of value. Hiss Braithwaite, who bad begun recently to think a palace the dreariest place in the worlci, and the most commonplace, com-monplace, found the preparations lather exciting. Being British she dearly loved the aristocracy, and shrugged hot shoulders at any family which took up less than a page in the peerage. She resented deeply the intrusion in-trusion or the commoner into British politics, and considered Lloyd George an upstart and an interloper. That evening she took the crown prince to see the preparations for the festivities. The flowers appealed to him, and he asked for and secured n rose, which he held carefully. But the magnificence of the table only faintly Impressed him, and when he heard that Nikky would not be present, he lost interest entirely. "Will they wheel my grandfather in in a chair?" lie inquired. "He Is too ill," Miss Braithwaite said. "He'll be rather lonely, when they're all at the party. You don't suppose I could go and sit with him, do you?" "It will be long after your bedtime." bed-time." Bedtime being the one rule which was i never under and circumstances broken, he did not persist. To have insisted might have meant five marks oil in Miss Braithwaite's book, and his record rec-ord was very good that week. Together To-gether the elderly English woman and the boy went back to the school room. The Countess Loschek, who bad dressed with a heavy heart, was easily the most beautiful of the women that night. A little court paid tribute to her beauty, and bowed the deeper and flattered the more as she openly scorned and flouted them. She caught once a flicker of admirution in Karl's fate, aud although her head went high, her heart beat 6tormiIy under It Hedwig was like a flower that required re-quired the 6iin. Only her sun was happiness. She was in soft white chiffons, her hair and frock alike girlish girl-ish and unpretentious. Her mother, coming iuto her dressing room, had eyed her with disfnvor. "You look like a schoolgirl," she said, and had sent for rouge, and with her own royal hands applied it. Hedwig Hed-wig stood silent, aud allowed her to fcave her way without protest. Had submitted, Uw, to a diamond pin In her hair, and a string of her mother's pearls. "There," 6a!d 'Annunciata, standing off and surveying her, "you look less like a baby." She did, indeed! It took Hedwig quite five minutes to wash the rouge off her face, and there was, one might as well confess, a moment when a part of the crown jewels of the kingdom lay in a corner of the room, whence a trembling maid salvaged them, and examined them for damage. The Princess Hedwig appeared that evening without rouge, and was the "There," Said Annunciata, "You Look Less Like a Baby." only woman in the room thus unadorned. un-adorned. Also she wore her coming out string of modest pearls and a slightly defiant, somewhat frightened, expression. expres-sion. The dinner was endless, which was necessary, since nothiug was to follow but conversation. There could, under the circumstances, be no dancing. And the talk a tne table, through course after course, was somewhat hectic, even under the constraining presence of King Karl. There were two reasons for this: Karl's presence and his purpose pur-pose as yet unannounced, but surmised, sur-mised, and even known and the situation sit-uation in the city. That was bad. The papers had been ordered to make no mention of the occurrence of the afternoon, but it was well known. There were many at the table who felt the whole attempt foolhardy, fool-hardy, the setting of a match to inflammable in-flammable material. There were otn-ers otn-ers who resented Karl's presence in Livonia, and all that it implied. And perhaps there were, too, among the guests, one or more who had but recently re-cently sat in less august and more aw ful company. Beneath all the brilliance and chatter, chat-ter, the sparkle and gayety, there was, then, uneasiness, wretchedness, and even treachery. And outside the palace, pal-ace, held back by the guards, there still stood a part of the sullen crowd which had watched the arrival of the carriages and automobiles, had craned forward to catch a glimpse of uniform or brilliantly shrouded figure entering the palace, and muttered as it looked. Dinner was over at last. The party moved back to the salon, a vast and empty place, hung with tapestries and gnyly lighted. Here the semblance of gayety persisted, and Karl, affability itself, spoke a few words to each of the guests. Then it was over. The guests left, the members of the council, coun-cil, each with a wife on his arm, frowsy, overdressed women most of them The council was chosen for ability and not for birth. At last only the suite remained, and constraint vanished. The family withdrew shortly after to a small salon off the large one. And there, at last, Karl cornered Hedwig and demanded speech. "Where?" she asked, glancing around the crowded room. "I shall have to leave that to you, he said. "Unless there is a balcony." bal-cony." , "But do you think it is necessary? "Why not?" "Because what I have to say does not matter." n "It matters very much to me, he replied gravely. Hedwig went first, slipping away ouietlv and umiotloed. Karl asked the archduchess' permission to follow her and found her waiting there alone rather desperately calm now, and with a tinge of excited color in her cheeks. Because he cared a great deal, ifnd because, be-cause, as kings go, "he was neither hopelessly had nor hard, his first words were kind and genuine, and almost brought her to tears. "Poor little girl!" he said. He had dropped the curtain behind him, and they stood alone. "Don't," said Hedwig ; "I want to be very calm, and I am sorry for myself already." "Then you think It is all very terrible?" ter-rible?" She did not reply, and he drew a chair for her to the rail. When she was 6eated, he took up his position beside her, one arm against a pillar. "I wonder, Hedwig," he said, "if It is not terrible because it Is new to you, and because you do not know me very well. Not," he added hastily, "that I think your knowing me well would be an advantage! I am not so idiotic. But you do not know me at all, and for a good many years I must have stood in the light of an enemy. It is not easy to readjust such things witness the reception I had today !" "Why must we talk about It?" Hedwig Hed-wig demanded, looking up at him suddenly sud-denly with a flash of her old spirit. "It will not change anything." "Perhaps not. Perhaps yes. You see, I am not quite satisfied. I do not want you, unless you are willing. It would be a poor bargain for me, and not quite fair." A new turn, this, with a vengeance! Hedwig stared up with 6tartled eyes. It was not enough to be sacrificed. And as she realized all that hung on the situation, the very life of the kingdom, king-dom, perhaps the safety of her family, everything, she closed her eyes for fear he might see the fright in them. Karl bent over and took one of her cold hands between his two warm ones. "Little Hedwig," he said, "I want you to come willingly because I care a great deal. I would like you to care, too. Don't you think you would, after a time?" "After a time!" said Hedwig drearily. drear-ily. "That's what they all say. After a time it doesn't matter. Marriage Is always the same after a time." "Why should marriage be always the Same, after a time?" he inquired. "This sort of marriage, without love." "It is hardly that, is it? I love you." "I wonder how much you loveme." Karl smiled. He was on his own ground here. The girlish question put him at ease. "Enough for us both, at first," he said. "After that " "But," said Hedwig desperately, "suppose I know I shall never care for you, the way you will want me to. You talk of being fair. I want to be fair to you. You have a right " She checked herself abruptly. After all, he might have a right to know about Nikky Larisch. But there were others who had rights, too Otto to his throne, her mother and Hilda and all the others, to safety, her grandfather to die in peace, the only gift she could give him. "What I think you want to tell me, Is something I already know," Karl said gravely. "Suppose I am willing to take that chance? Suppose I am vain enough, or fool enough, to think that I can make you forget certain things, certain people. What then?" "I do not forget easily." "But you would try?" "I would try," said Hedwif, almost In a whisper. Karl bent over and taking her hands, raised her to her feet. "Darling," he said, and suddenly drew her to him. He covered her with "Now," He Said, "Have You Forgotten?" Forgot-ten?" hot kisses, her neck, her fac, the soft angle below her ear. Then he held her away from him triumphantly. "Now," he said, "have you forgotten?" But Hedwig, scarlet with shame, faced him steadily. "No," she said. Later In the evening the old king received a present, a rather wilted rose, to which was pinned a card, with "Best wishes from Ferdinand William Otto," printed on it in careful letters. It was the only flower the king had received during his Illness. When, that night, he fell asleep, it was still clasped in his old hand, and there was a look of grim tenderness on the face on the pillow, turned toward his dead son's picture. Troubled times now, with the carnival carni-val only a day or two off, and the shop windows' gay with banners; with the committee of ten in almost constant session, and Olga Loschek summoned before it, to be told of the passage, and the thing she was to do ; with the old king very close to the open door, and Hedwig being fitted for her bridal robe and for somber black at one fitting. Troubled times, indeed. The city was smoldering, and from some strange source had come a new rumor. Nothing less than that the royalists, headed by the chancellor, despairing of crowning the boy prince, would, on the king's death, make away with him, thus putting Hedwig on the throne Hedwig, queen of Karnla perhaps already al-ready by secret marriage. The city, which adored the boy, was seething. The rumor had originated with Olga Loschek, who had given it to the committee as a useful weapon. Thus would she have her revenge on those of the palace, and at the same time secure her own safety. Revenge, indeed, for she knew the way of such rumors, how they fly from house to house, street to street. How the Innocent, In-nocent, proclaiming their innocence, look even the more guilty. When she had placed the scheme before be-fore the committee of ten, had seen the eagerness with which they grasped it "in this way," she had said, in her scornful, incisive tones, "the onus of the boy is not on you, but on them. Even those who have no sympathy with your movement will burn at such a rumor. The better the citizen, the more a lover of home and order, the more outraged he will be. Every man in the city with a child of his own will rise against the palace." "Madame," the leader had said, "you should be of the committee." But she had ignored the speech contemptuously, con-temptuously, and gone on to other things. Now everything was arranged. Black Humbert had put his niece to work on a carnival dress for a small boy, and had stayed her curiosity by a hint that it was for the American lad. "They are comfortable tenants," he had said. "Not lavish, perhaps, as rich Americans should be, but orderly, and pleasant. The boy has good manners. man-ners. It would be well to please him." So the niece, sewing in the back room, watched Bobby in and out, with pleasant mysteries in her eyes. - Now and then, in the evenings, when the Americans were away,--and Bobby was snug in bed, with Tucker on. the tiny feather comfort at his feet, the Frauiein would come downstairs down-stairs and sit in Black Humbert's room. At such times the niece would be sent on an errand, and the two would talk. The niece, who, although she had no lover, was on the lookout for love, suspected a romance of the middle-aged, and smiled In the half darkness of the street : smiled with a touch of malice, as one who has pierced the armor of the fortress, and knows its weakness. But it was not love that Humbert and the Frauiein talked. Herman Spier was busy in those days and making plans. Thus, day by day, he dined in the restaurant where the little Marie, now weary oi her husband, sat in idle intervals behind the cashier's desk, and watched the grass in the place emerge from its winter hiding place. When 6he turned her eyes to the room, frequently she encountered those of Herman Spier, pale yet burning, fixed on her. And at last, one day when her husband lay lame with sciatica, she left the desk and paused by Herman's table. "You come frequently now," she observed. ob-served. "It is that you like us here, or that you have risen in the shop?" "I have left the shop," said Herman, staring at her. Flesh, in a moderate amount, suited hef well. He liked plump women. They were, if you please, an armful. "And I come to see you." "Left the shop!" Marie exclaimed. "And Peter Niburg he has left also? I never 6ee him." "No," said Herman noncommittally. "He is Hi, perhaps?" "He is dead," said Herman, devouring devour-ing her with his eyes. "Dead !" She put a hand to her plump p'.de. "Ay. Shot as a spy." Tie took an-othei an-othei piece of the excellent pigeon pie. Marie, meantime, lost all her looks, grew pasty white. "Ui. the the terrorists?" she demanded, de-manded, in a whisper. "Terrorists ! No. Of Karnia. He was no patriot" So the little Marie went back to her desk, and to her staring out over the place in intervals of business. And what she thought of no one can know. But that night, and thereafter, she was very tender to her spouse, and put cloths soaked in hot turpentine water ' on his aching thigh. I On the surface things went on as I usual at the palace. Karl's visit had ! been but for a tint or two. He had i met the council In session, and had had, because of their growing alarm, rather his own way with them. But although he had pointed to the king's condition and theirs as an argument for immediate marriage he failed. The thing would be done, but properly and in good time. Karl left them In a bad temper, well concealed, and had the pleasure of being hissed through the streets. But he comforted himself with the thought ef Hedwig. He had taken her In his arms before he left, and she had made no resistance. She had even, in view of all that was at stake, made a desperate effort to return his kiss, and found herself trembling afterward. In two weeks he was to return to her, and he whispered that to her. On the day after the dinner party Otto went to a hospital with Miss Braithwaite. It was the custom of the palace to send the flowers from its spectacular functions to the hospitals, and the crown prince delighted in these errands. So they went, escorted by the functionaries func-tionaries of the hospital, past the military mili-tary wards, where soldiers in shabby uniforms sat on benches in the spring sunshine, to the general wards beyond. The crown prince was almost hidden behind the armful he carried. Miss Braithwaite had all she could hold. A convalescent patient, in slippers many sizes too large for him, wheeled the remainder in a barrow, and almost upset the barrow in his excitement Through long corridors into wards fresh scrubbed against his arrival, with white counterpanes exactly square, and patients forbidden to move and disturb the geometrical exactness of the beds, went Prince Ferdinand William Otto. At each bed he stopped, selected a flower, and held It out. Some there were who reached out, and took It with a smile. Others lay still, and saw neither boy nor blossom. "They sleep, highness," the nurse would say. "But their eyes are open." "They are very weary, and resting." In such cases he placed the flower on the pillow, and went on. One such, nowever, lying with vacant va-cant eyes fixed on the ceiling, turned and glanced at the boy, and Into his empty gaze crept a faint intelligence. It was not much. He seemed to question ques-tion with his eyes. ' That was all. As the little procession moved on, however, how-ever, he raised himself on his elbow. "Who was that?" The ward, which might have been interested, was busy keeping its covers cov-ers straight and in following the progress pro-gress of the party. For the man had not spoken before. "The crown prince." The sick man lay back and closed his eyes. Soon he slept. His comrade in the next bed beckoned to a sister. "He has spoken," he said. "Either he recovers, or he dies." But Haeckel did not die. He lived to do his part in the coming crisis, to prove that even the great hands of Black Humbert on his throat were not so strong as his own young spirit; lived, indeed, to confront the terrorist as one risen from the dead. But that day he lay and slept, by curious irony the flower from Karl's banquet in a cup of water beside him. On the day before the carnival, Hedwig Hed-wig had a visitor, none other than the Countess Loschek. Hedwig, all her color gone now. her high spirit crushed, her heart torn into fragments and neatly distributed between Nikky, who had most 4 it, the crown prince, and the old king. Hedwig, having given her permission to come, greeted her politely but without enthusiasm. "Highness !" said the countess surveying sur-veying her, "may I speak to you frankly?" frank-ly?" "Please do," Hedwig replied. "Everybody does, anyhow. Especially when It Is something disagreeable." Olga Loschek watched her warily. She knew the family as only the outsider out-sider could know It; knew that Hedwig, Hed-wig, who would have disclaimed the fact,' was like her mother in some things, notably In a disposition to be mild until a certain moment, submissive, submis-sive, even acquiescent, and then suddenly sud-denly to become, as it were, a royalty and grow cold, haughty. But If Hedwig Hed-wig was driven in those days, so was the countess, desperate and driven to desperate methods. "I am presuming, highness, on your mother's kindness to me, and your own." "Well, go on," said Hedwig resignedly. resign-edly. But the next words brought her up in her chair. "Are you going to allow your life to be ruined?" was what the countess said. Careful ! Hedwig had thrown up her head and looked at her with hostile eyes. But the next moment she bad forgotten she was a princess, and the granddaughter to the king, and remembered remem-bered only that she was a woman, and terror-stricken. She flung out her arms, and then buried her face In them. "now can I help "it?" she said. "How can you do It?" Olga Loschek countered. "After all. It Is you who ! must do this thing. No one else. It is you they are offering on the altar of their ambition, , "Ambition?" "Ambition. What else is it? Sarely you do not believe these tales they tell old wives' tales of plot and counterplot !" "But the chancellor " "Certainly the chancellor!" mocked Olga Loschek. "Highness, for years he has had a dream. A great dream. To fulfill, his dream to bring prosperity and greatness to the country, and naturally, to him who plans It, there is a price to pay. He would have you pay it" Hedwig raised her face and searched the other woman's eyes. "That Is all, then?" she said. "All this other, this fright this talk of treason and danger, that is not true?" "Not so true as he would have you believe," replied Olga Loschek .steadily. .stead-ily. "There are malcontents everywhere, every-where, in every land. It is all ambition, am-bition, one dream or another." t "But my grandfather " f. "An old man, in the hands of hl9 ministers 1" -! Hedwig rose and paced the floor, her fingers twisting nervously. "But it Is too late," she cried at last. "Every- "But It Is Too Late," She Cried. thing is arranged. I cannot refuse now. They would I don't know what they would do to me !" "Do ! To the granddaughter of the king. What can they do?" That aspect of things, to do her credit, had never occurred to Hedwig. She paused in front of .the countess. "What can I do?" she asked pitifully. "That I dare not presume to say. I came because X felt I can only say what, in your place, I should do." "I am afraid. You would not be afraid." Hedwig shivered. "What would you do?" "If I knew, highness, that some one, for whom X cared, himself cared deeply deep-ly enough to make any sacrifice, I should demand happiness. I rather ' think I should lose the world, and gain something like happiness." "Demand !" Hedwig said hopelessly. hopeless-ly. "Yes, you would demand it I can- -not demand things. I am always too frightened." The countess rose. "I am afraid I have done an unwise thing," she enld. "If your mother knew " She shrugged her shoulders. "You have only been kind. I have 60 few who really care." The countess curtsied, and made for the door. "I must go," she said, "before "be-fore I go further, highness. My apology is that I saw you unhappy, and that I resented it, because " ,"Yes?" "Because I considered It unnecessary." unneces-sary." She was a very wise woman. She left then, and let the next step come from Hedwig. It followed, as a matter mat-ter of record, within the hour, at least four hours sooner than she had anticipated. antici-pated. She was in her boudoir, not reading, not even thinking, but sitting staring ahead, as Minna had seen her do repeatedly in the past weeks. Sha dared not think, for that matter. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |