The Great Court Scandal Part 6

"Annoyance!" she echoed in anger. "Your injudicious actions have placed me in the greatest peril. The people have coupled our names, and you are known to have followed me on here."

Her companion was silent, his eyes downcast, as though not daring to meet her reproachful gaze.

"I have been foolish--very foolish, I know," she cried. "In the old days, when we knew each other at Wartenstein, a boy-and-girl affection sprang up between us; and then, when you left the University, they sent you as attache to the Emba.s.sy in London, and we gradually forgot each other. You grew tired of diplomacy, and returned to find me the wife of the Crown Prince; and in a thoughtless moment I promised, at your request, to recommend you to a post in the private cabinet of the King.

Since that day I have always regretted. I ought never to have allowed you to return. I am as much to blame as you are, for it was an entirely false step. Yet how was I to know?"

"True, my Princess!" said the man in a low, choking voice. "How were you to know that I still loved you in silence, that I was aware of the secret of your domestic unhappiness, that I--"

"Enough!" she cried, drawing herself up. "The word love surely need not be spoken between us. I know it all, alas! Yet I beg of you to remember that I am the wife of another, and a woman of honour."

"Ah yes," he exclaimed, his trembling hand resting on the back of the chair upon which she sat. "Honour--yes. I love you, Claire--you surely know that well. But we do not speak of it; it is a subject not to be discussed by us. Day after day, unable to speak to you, I watch you in silence. I know your bitterness in that gilded prison they call the Court, and long always to help you and rescue you from that--that man to whom you are, alas! wedded. It is all so horrible, so loathsome, that I recoil when I see him smiling upon you while at heart he hates you. For weeks, since last we spoke together, how I have lived I scarcely know-- utter despair, insane hopes alternately possess me--but at last the day came, and I followed you here to speak with you, my Princess."

She remained silent, somewhat embarra.s.sed, as he took her gloved hand and again kissed it.

She was nervous, but next instant determined.

"Alas! I have not failed to notice your strong affection for me, Carl,"

she said with a heavy sigh, her beautiful face slightly flushed. "You must therefore control this pa.s.sion that seems to have been rekindled within your heart. For my sake go, and forget me," she implored.

"Resign your appointment, and re-enter the diplomatic service of the Emperor. I will speak to Lindenau, who will give you an appointment, say, in Rome or Paris. But you must not remain at Treysa. I--I will not allow it."

"But, Princess," he cried in dismay, "I cannot go and leave you there alone among your enemies. You--"

"You must; for, unintentionally, because you have my interests at heart, you are my worst enemy. You are indiscreet, just as every man is who loves a woman truly."

"Then you really believe I love you still, Claire," he cried, bending towards her. "You remember those delightfully happy days at Wartenstein long ago, when--"

She held up her hand to stop the flow of his words.

He looked at her. For an instant her glance wavered and shrank.

She was his idol, the beautiful idol with eyes like heaven.

Yes, she was very beautiful--beautiful with all the beauty of woman now, not with the beauty of the girl.

And she, with her sad gaze fixed upon him, remembered all the past--the great old castle in the far-off Tyrol, her laughter at his awkwardness; their chats in English when both were learning that language; the quarrel over the lilac blossom. At Arcachon--the sh.o.r.e and the pine forest; the boyish kiss stolen under the mistletoe; the declaration of their young love on that lonely mountain-side with the world lying at their feet; the long, sweet, silent kisses exchanged on their homeward walk; the roses she had given him as farewell pledge when he had left for London.

All had gone--gone for ever.

Nevertheless, though everything was past, she could not resist an impulse to recall it--oh, very briefly--in a few feeling words, as one may recall some sweet and rapturous dream.

"We were very foolish," she said.

He was silent. His heart was too full for words. He knew that a woman who can look back on the past--on rapture, delight, the first thrilling kiss, the first fervent vow--and say, "We were very foolish," is a woman changed beyond recall.

In other days, had he heard such sacrilegious words a cry of horror would have sprung from his lips. But now, though he shuddered with anguish, he simply said,--

"I shall always remember it, Princess;" adding, with a glance at her, "and you."

Her wonderful eyes shrank once more and her lips quivered, as though for one second touched again by the light wing of love--as if, indeed, she felt she had done something unworthy of her, something which might bring her regret hereafter.

In the midst of his confusion, the man remained victorious. She would never be his, and yet she would be his for ever. No matter how she might strive, she would never entirely forget.

She sighed, and rising, walked unsteadily to the window, where, below, the street lamps were just being lit. Daylight had faded, and in the room it was almost dark.

"To-night, Carl, we meet for the last time," she said with an effort, in a hard, strained voice. "Both for you and for me it is best that we should part and forget. I did wrong to recommend you to the post at Court, and I ought to have foreseen the grave peril of the situation.

Fortunately, I have realised it in time, even though our enemies already believe ill and invent lies concerning us. You must not return to Court. Remember, I forbid you. To-night, at the State dinner, I will speak to Lindenau and ask him to send you as attache to Rome or to Petersburg. It is the wisest course."

"Then your Highness really intends to banish me?" he said hoa.r.s.ely, in a low, broken voice of reproach.

"Yes," she faltered. "I--I must--Carl--to--to save myself."

"But you are cruel--very cruel--Princess," he cried, his voice trembling with emotion.

"You must realise my peril," she said seriously. "Your presence at Court increases my danger hourly, because"--and she hesitated--"because, Carl, I confess to you that I do not forget--I never shall forget," she added as the tears sprang to her blue eyes. "Therefore, go! Let me bear my own burden as best I can alone, and let me remember you as what you have always been--chivalrous to an unhappy woman; a man of honour."

Slowly she moved across the room towards the door, but he arrested her progress, and took her small hand quickly in his grasp.

For some moments, in the falling gloom, he looked into her sweet, tearful face without speaking; then crushing down the lump that arose in his throat, he raised to his hot, pa.s.sionate lips the hand of the woman he loved, and, imprinting upon it a tender, lingering kiss, murmured,--

"Adieu, Claire--my Princess--my first, my only love!" She drew her hand away as his pa.s.sionate words fell upon her ear, sighed heavily, and in silence opened the door and pa.s.sed out from his presence.

And thus were two brave hearts torn asunder.

CHAPTER FIVE.

SOME SUSPICIONS.

State dinners, those long, tedious affairs at which the conversation is always stilted and the bearing of everybody is stiff and unnatural, always bored the Crown Princess Claire to death.

Whenever she could she escaped them; but as a Crown Princess she was compelled by Court etiquette to undergo ordeals which, to a woman not educated as an Imperial Archd.u.c.h.ess, would have been impossible. She had trained herself to sit for hours smiling and good-humoured, although at heart she hated all that glittering formality and rich display.

There were times when at her own Court at Treysa, at the military anniversary dinners that were so often held, she had been compelled to sit at table with her husband and the guests for four and five hours on end, without showing any sign of fatigue beyond taking her smelling-salts from the hand of her lady-in-waiting. Yet she never complained, though the eating, and more especially the drinking, disgusted her. It was a duty--one of the many wearisome, soul-killing duties which devolve upon a Crown Princess--of which the world at large is in utter ignorance. Therefore she accepted it in silence, yet bored always by meeting and speaking with the same circle of people day after day--a small circle which was ever intriguing, ever consumed by its own jealousies, ever striving for the favour of the aged king; the narrow-minded little world within the Palace who treated those outside as though of different flesh and blood to themselves.

Whether at a marriage, at a funeral, at the opera, at a review, or at a charity _fete_--everywhere where her Court duties called her--she met the same people, she heard the same interminable chatter and the same shameful scandals, until, unhappy in her own domestic life, she had grown to loathe it all, and to long for that liberty of which she had dreamed when a girl at her father's castle at Wartenstein, or at the great old Residenz-Schloss, or palace, at Pressburg.

Yet what liberty could she, heiress to a throne, obtain; what, indeed, within her husband's Court, a circle who dined at five o'clock and were iron-bound by etiquette?

The State dinner at the Imperial palace that night differed but little from any other State dinner--long, dull, and extremely uninteresting.

Given in honour of a Swedish Prince who was at the moment the guest of the Emperor, there were present the usual circle of Imperial Archdukes and Archd.u.c.h.esses, who after dinner were joined in the great reception room by the Ministers of State, the British, French, and Italian Amba.s.sadors, the Swedish Minister and the whole staff of the Swedish Emba.s.sy in the Schwindga.s.se. Every one was in uniform and wore his orders, the Emperor himself standing at the end of the room, chatting with his young guest in French.

The Crown Princess Claire, a striking figure in turquoise chiffon, was standing near, discussing Leoncavallo's new opera with her cousin, the Princess Marie of Bourbon, who had arrived only a few days before from Madrid. Suddenly her eye caught the figure she had all the evening been in Search of.

Count de Lindenau, Privy Councillor, Chamberlain, Minister of the Imperial Household, and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Austrian Empire--a short, rather stout, bald-headed man, with heavy white moustache, with the crimson ribbon of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary across his shirt-front and the Grand Cross in brilliants upon his coat--stopped to bow low before the Crown Princess, who in an instant seized the opportunity to leave her cousin and speak with him.

"It is really quite a long time since we met, Count," she exclaimed pleasantly. "I met the Countess at Cannes in January, and was delighted to see her so much better. Is she quite well again?"

"I thank your Imperial Highness," responded the Minister. "The Countess has completely recovered. At present she is at Como. And you? Here for a long stay in Vienna, I hope. We always regret that you have left us, you know," he added, smiling, for she had, ever since a girl, been friendly with him, and had often visited his wife at their castle at Mauthhausen.

"No; I regret that I must return to Treysa in a few days," she said as she moved along and he strolled at her side down the great gilded room where the little groups were standing gossiping. Then, when his Excellency had asked after the health of the Crown Prince and of the little Princess Ignatia, she drew him aside to a spot where they could not be overheard, and halting, said in a lower tone,--