Chapter XVI: Part II: I (11)

He stood up, his eyes flashing, his cheeks glowing. Europeans, unlike Anglo-Saxons, are not afraid of expressing lofty sentiments, and William was the last man to consider whether people approved or not of any sentiments he chose to entertain. “I believe that it is our destiny, your Majesty,” he cried. “And that it is the greatest destiny that ever has befallen any sovereign. For, I swear to you all, I have no desire to be a second Napoleon, crushing and ravaging, but to rule men for their good, to have a vast empire in which human life shall be as protected, as safe, as it is in my own empire to-day, where all may have a chance to prosper and be happy, to worship God in their own way, where such tyranny of the mind and body as still exists in these benighted parts of Europe--to our shame, your Majesty, to our shame!--will be abolished so completely that the children of those who suffer so bitterly to-day shall listen to tales of the past with incredulous amazement. I have burned for this since the day I ascended the throne, but I had no right to plunge my country into a war in which the chances were all against me. Now I believe that the day has come!--the day has come! And I beg, I implore your Majesty not to throw away this opportunity to make our names and our empires the most invincible on earth, our opportunity for good such as no sovereign before has ever dared to dream of. If we let it pass we deserve the worst that can befall us. But it is impossible for me to believe that your Majesty will let it pass. I have seen it all before me! I have already lived in that future--ruled by the sword, by kings divinely appointed, sternly, inflexibly, but with wisdom, with kindness, with justice. I have been cramped, thwarted, balked at every turn; there have been times when my interest, even my courage, has almost failed me; but with a power so vast as this conquest would give me, I should be invincible, the enemies in my present empire would crumble. Far from fearing such increase of power, of responsibility, I court it, I am eager for it, for with no lesser weapons can I accomplish the destiny to which I was born.”

Even Mr. Abbott had forgotten his pangs, and a faint glow of excitement had entered his gray cheeks. Fessenden, thrilling, forgot his own desires for the moment: he knew that however the Emperor might feel to-morrow that was the way he felt to-day. Indeed there had been little exaggeration in his mood. William thoroughly believed in himself and in his gifts and mission as a ruler; and no matter what the causes of discontent which had bred the German socialist of to-day--causes insignificant enough when compared with those of even Italy and Spain, leaving out Russia and other barbarous states--no one questioned the clock-work system of rule in his country, the security of life and freedom of conscience, and the solid industrial basis on which he had set it.

The Emperor of Austria knew him well enough to believe in him when he was excited, at least, and he too felt a spark fly up from the ashes in his breast. He answered temperately, however.

“I should be the last to forbid the fulfilment of such worthy ambitions, your Majesty, had this opportunity come to us in the regular and legitimate channels. But not only does it savor too much to my mind, grown old in practicality, of Aladdin’s lamp, but it would place us under an obligation to a republic on another continent which, it seems to me, is full of portent.”

“The obligation is a personal one, your Majesty; and when we are in possession of Europe I think we will be in a position to force our own tariff conditions on the United States. More I cannot say.”

The older Emperor leaned across the table and fixed him with his eye.

“Your Majesty,” he said solemnly, “are there any conceivable conditions in which you would marry your daughter to an American?”

William had expected this question, and had trusted to inspiration to answer it without betraying the fact that no such circumstances existed in the womb of Time. “Your Majesty,” he replied quickly, “may I not answer your question with another? Is not the Archduchess Ranata Theresia a menace in her own remarkable self to the peace of your empire, and doubly so since she has given in Hungary the evidence of her talents, and achieved a popularity that no sovereign in Europe enjoys? I heartily wish she had been born a man, but as it is I must frankly insist that the future peace of Europe depends as much upon her removal as upon any other cause.”

“What you say is true enough,” replied the ruler of the Dual Monarchy gloomily, “but she can be removed otherwise. You are informed of the alliance I have in mind?”

“I am, your Majesty, and with all my humble deference for your judgment I am forced to say that I do not believe such a marriage would effect the result we desire. In the first place, it would be a contest of two strong wills, and your daughter is a woman of Hapsburg gifts, quite aside from her force of character; in the second place, she is a woman of uncommon fascination. No doubt she would bind the Archduke Aloys Franz hand and foot, and gratify her ambitions through him; it must be remembered that she could not be asked to take the oath of renunciation, your Majesty.”

The Emperor of Austria stirred uneasily. His daughter’s charm as a woman had never seriously occurred to him, but he saw the danger in a flash. Would it not indeed be better to get her out of Europe? But he looked at the American leaning against the casement, encountered the cold blue eyes before which millions seemed ever passing in review, and stiffened. The temptation fled. The idea was preposterous enough, without a son-in-law who would make him feel as if Europe were on a library-shelf in an antique binding.

“She can be shut up,” he said briefly. “There is no necessity to marry her at all. Such things have been done, and they can be done again--with all kindness, of course, but as securely as if in an underground dungeon.”

Fessenden strode forward and stood in front of the table.

“Is that your answer?” he asked.

“That is my answer.”

“That you would shut up a woman like that as if she were a lunatic or an idiot, without liberty, without friends, until she went mad or killed herself?”

“What would be done would be for the good of the state, and she herself would see it in time.” The last words were not emphatic, but it was evident that the gorge of the Emperor was rising.

“Well, sir, you will do nothing of the sort,” said Fessenden.

“What?” The Emperor was on his feet. Angry as he was, he stood erect and majestic against the red wall, an imposing figure; but the old man and the young man, the old world and the new, glared at each other between the tall candelabra.

The other men had also risen. The Emperor of Germany, who had had an instant of deep depression, felt his spirits rise, and at the same time resented the light treatment of majesty.

“You will do nothing of the sort,” repeated Fessenden. “And before the month is out you will give me your daughter in marriage here in the Hofburg. I have had no desire to threaten you, to make you feel your impotence; I hoped that, like the Emperor of Germany, you would be sufficiently enlightened to take advantage of the offer I made--an offer in which you would have had no share, by the way, but for the daughter you propose to treat as if she were a wooden doll, or you some long-forgotten Hapsburg. Now I will tell you, your Majesty, why you will neither incarcerate her nor forbid her marriage to me. If you withhold your consent for twenty-four hours, I shall take the train to-morrow for St. Petersburg and make the same offer to the Russian government. You may imagine how long they would hesitate. With such assurance of success they would strike to-day instead of waiting a half-dozen years for greater preparedness. Then, sir, when Austria was a province of Russia, your daughter would be the first prisoner set free.”

The Emperor had fallen heavily into his chair. As Fessenden finished speaking, William, with a gasp, walked to the window. There was a moment of intense and painful silence, and then the German Emperor spoke.

“He will keep his word, your Majesty.”

The Emperor rose. His face was almost purple. His heavy Hapsburg mouth was trembling.

“I shall give you your answer before to-night,” he said to Fessenden, although he did not look at him. “And now I beg that you will excuse me. I am unable to stand any more.”

He passed out. William turned to Fessenden. His eyes sparkled with excitement, but he frowned.

“The battle is won,” he said. “But what a _coup d’etat_! I am thankful I knew nothing of it.”

“I should have been a poor sort of friend to have taken you as deeply as that into my confidence.”

“Ah! Well, I wish the Emperor could have consented more gracefully. I hated seeing him driven to the wall like that.”

“So did I. But it was success or failure. The odds were even. He is the ruler of a great empire, skilled in power and diplomacy. If I had hesitated to use the only available means of success, I should not be worth my salt. For that matter, he merely followed a law of Nature.”

“Well, you have won, and I wish you joy. No doubt you will see her before many days have passed.”

As they were leaving the room, Fessenden laid his hand on the other’s arm. “Always remember,” he said, “that I am no trafficker in human beings. I throw this great power into your hands because I believe you will govern so wisely that your people will be fitted for the great European republic before you die.”

“_Ach was!_” said the Emperor of Germany.

XXXV

The _bora_ which had raged for days, making it not only unsafe but impossible to venture out of doors, had flown round the isthmus to torment Fiume. The blue Adriatic sparkled in a great silence, and, so brilliant was the atmosphere, Ranata could fancy she saw Italy far away on the edge of the level waters. Even the little breakers at the foot of the castle growled like cubs instead of bellowing in fury at the high confident roar in the pine tops on the hill. The white castle, with its Norman tower and gateway and innumerable turrets, fresh, strong, symmetrical, solitary on the long curving line of white coast, whose little peninsula juts abruptly from the wooded mountain into the sea, was the fairest prison that had ever held a princess captive. The bluest sea in the world was at its feet, the yellow sun flamed in a sky almost as blue, and on the mountain behind were the everlasting greens of cypress and pine. There is no more dazzling combination of color in the world, and on moonlight nights it is but the exchange of gold for silver.

Ranata, standing on the stone terrace in front of the library and overhanging the sea, her back to the war-ship on the right of the castle, her eyes roaming from the incomparable expanse of the Adriatic to Trieste and the mountains beyond, felt that with knowledge, in addition to the faith that sustained her, she could serenely endure her exile throughout what she believed to be the inevitable months. She had now been two weeks at Miramar, and kings might have died and dynasties fallen, the very continents might be at war, for all the news that had come to her from the world. Not a letter, not a newspaper, passed the sentries at the gates; the grounds swarmed with guards; one paced the terrace where she stood; others were on duty at the head of the staircase at night. She met Maria Leopoldina at the second breakfast and at dinner, and was accompanied by that vigorous duenna on her long walks in fine weather, but subjects of common interest had long since been exhausted and they bore each other silent company, the older woman too thankful that her charge was amiable to repine at her own fate.

Complete faith had restored Ranata’s peace of mind, delivered her even from variability of mood, and on the whole she had been glad of these many days alone. She no longer yearned with romantic melancholy for life companioned but by a spiritualized memory, but examined herself and her possibilities conscientiously, and dwelt much, if soberly, in the upper air. If she idealized Fessenden and the matrimonial state, that did her no harm. Still, the time seemed long, and she had not the least idea by what method the American lover purposed to induce a Hapsburg to give him his daughter in marriage. She knew that he would succeed, but she also knew that the petrifactions in his way might yield very slowly even to his energy and habit of success.

She sighed and entered the castle. Her morning walk had been a long one, and she returned to the library for rest and the unfailing distraction it afforded her. It was a lofty room, not too large, the light woods of floor and ceiling almost reflecting the sunshine which poured through the windows. Each one of the six thousand books in many languages looked as if personally selected by the poor gentleman and scholar who had graced so delightfully the one sphere for which Nature had designed him, and in whose alien rôle naught had become him but his death. The room had been bright even while the _bora_ seemed to blow the very sun about the sky, and the books in their haphazard bindings looked so gay and fresh that it was difficult to believe their owner had left them forty years before. Only the photographs of friends, which covered the walls of the adjoining study, were faded, their garments old-fashioned. Eugénie, in her crinoline, looked like a by-gone fashion-plate; even her autograph was dim; for the pictures had been hastily thrust into ordinary little wooden or gilt frames, and unprotected by glass. The beauty of Elizabeth had retired to the inmost folds of her hideous Victorian costume, and of her two oldest babies, taken with her, little was noticeable but the bulging brow and solemn eyes of Rudolf. But the crimson of hangings and chairs was still fresh and vivid, the heavy woodwork of the low ceiling, its design repeated in the floor, was highly polished, the pen on the table might have been dropped yesterday; all the clocks had been ticking these forty years. Every room in the castle looked as if designed and furnished by the happy young couple, but these two rooms were still most personal, still were pervaded by the refinement, the love of comfort and of home, of Maximilian and Carlotta. Ranata, when forced to remain in-doors, spent most of her time in them. In the library she had discovered five volumes of _Reports on Explorations and Surveys_, fruits of the thirty-third Congress of the United States, and had read them diligently. She had succeeded in investing the dry and spotted pages with a sentimental interest, all things being possible to a woman in love; but although most of the books she read at this time were written in the English language, it must be confessed that she did not find her profoundest distraction in the _Reports_. To-day, however, she was taking down the fourth volume, albeit with some humor, when Maria Leopoldina entered the library hurriedly, consternation and amazement distorting a countenance habitually masked with the mincing placidity of the courtier.

“The ship is weighing anchor!” she exclaimed. “And all but the usual guard have received orders--by telegraph from Vienna--to return to Trieste. And that is not all! I was asked a moment ago to look through the spy-glass--a steam-yacht is approaching from the Italian coast--they say it is Mr. Abbott’s. Can Franz have gone mad? Good God! can he be dead?”

Ranata dashed past her, and up the stair to the tower-room, where she had spent so many hours scanning the horizon through the glass. A moment later, in its burgee, she had read the personality of the rapidly approaching yacht. It was the _Alexandra_; and the war-ship was steaming in the opposite direction.

When she turned to the agitated Obersthofmeisterin, close upon her heels, she was trembling so violently she hardly could stand, her cheeks were blazing, and she thrust her hands into her heavy hair, and pulled it down as if its weight were intolerable.

“It means,” she stammered--“it means--cannot you see?--he has won--already--_I am to marry him!_” And then Maria Leopoldina felt as if her nerves had been assaulted by a swarm of hornets. Ranata collapsed upon a chair, and flew into hysterics. She had suffered in silence during that first awful week in the Hofburg, pride carrying her successfully through even that ordeal; and she had been calm enough during the past fortnight of solitude and uncertainty; but in the face of this sudden and violent prospect of victory and immediate happiness, her suppressed energies leaped their walls, and she cried and laughed and talked incoherent phrases until the duenna could stand no more and took refuge in a dead faint.

Ranata promptly recovered her reason, and applied the necessary restoratives without summoning help. When she had led her vibrating relative to a sofa, and fetched a bottle of salts, she arranged her own hair and face, and returned to the tower to watch the approach of the yacht. It steamed swiftly over the calm sea, but to Ranata’s excited nerves hours passed before she could read the ensign and burgee without the aid of the glass. She was now schooled to any surprise, but experienced a sharp thrill nevertheless when the proud craft, instead of passing the castle and making for Trieste, deliberately swung about and dropped anchor upon the exact spot where the war-ship had kept its vigilant watch. A moment later it ran up two flags, side by side--the Austrian and the American.

Ranata sank again upon a chair and held her breath, expecting to see a boat lowered and Fessenden descend. But the long moments passed--an hour passed; the incident appeared to be closed for the present. Officers sauntered up and down the deck, sailors bustled about, but no one appeared to manifest any interest in the castle. Finally she was forced to conclude that, whatever Fessenden had accomplished in Vienna, his yacht had come without him.

To remain inactive any longer was beyond her electrified nerves. She regarded Maria Leopoldina’s authority as at an end, and it was evident that the shaken Obersthofmeisterin was of the same opinion, for she had dragged herself to her room, and was seen no more that day. Ranata sent an invitation to the captain and the officers of the yacht to lunch at the castle. They lowered the flags and returned with the messenger; and although there was an animated party in the little dining-room up-stairs, all her subtle questioning was able to extract were the bare facts that on the previous evening they had received orders from their master in Vienna to proceed in the morning to Miramar, run up the two flags as they anchored off the castle, and not to lower them until they had received some answering signal from her. They were naïvely curious, and, face to face with the Archduchess beloved of their chief, frankly suspicious of the sequel. It was evident, however, that her information was more meagre than theirs, and they were so glad to get back to the tonic sweetness of the Adriatic after their fortnight at Venice, most malodorous of cities, and so enchanted with this beautiful princess and her castle, that they were content without knowledge, Yankees though they were.

After luncheon Ranata took them for a walk through the gardens and woods of the park, keeping them until they bored her, for she dreaded solitude and looked forward to the night with terror. But before the night came her nerves were to be lifted from the rack.

XXXVI

It was sundown and she stood on the terrace before the windows of the state dining-room on the eastern side of the castle, watching the shadows darken the woods rising almost perpendicularly before her. She heard the train go by high on the mountain, and sighed impatiently. She was at liberty to take any train up there she wished, and here she must remain in maddening unquiet. She even felt some impatience with Fessenden, who surely might have sent her a telegram.

But dinner had calmed her nerves--she had eaten no luncheon, and once more took her evening meal at the hour of five, that Maria Leopoldina might not add dyspepsia to her other burdens--and she made an effort to detach her thoughts from the fixed idea and subdue them before bedtime. There was an infinity of suggestion in her surroundings, and she conjured back the scene of nearly half a century ago when Maximilian and Carlotta had stood up in the boat at the foot of the water-steps down on her left, smiling farewell to the throng of relatives and friends who hung over the parapet or had crowded out upon the narrow mole as far as the sphinx at its point. Where the American yacht rode at anchor, a ship, in the gala dress of flags and banners and pennants, had waited to carry the brother of the Emperor to the imperial destiny in which he and the many who loved him found cause for pride. Some there may have been with misgivings, but they trusted in France; and that an Indian would in his dreams presume to treat an archduke of Austria as a mere rebel was beyond the imagination of any in that aristocratic throng--certainly unconceived by the gallant and smiling gentleman who looked his last upon Miramar. Throngs also--the people of Trieste--had stood on the long flight of stone steps with its three tiers, which led from Ranata’s feet to the broad terrace below, leading, in its turn, to the landing and the parapet; on the similar flight rising opposite; and on the steps beyond, ascending steeply to the quaint stiff old gardens. Ranata fancied the scoop bonnets, the ugly garments over the crinoline; and even the gay aftermath in the sky seemed to flaunt the colors that had bedecked the fatal vessel.

But visions and the past fled to their limbo. From the mountain came a wild peculiar cry, the supposed Indian war-whoop with which herself and Alexandra had been accustomed to pierce the repose of Ischl and Schönbrunn, when younger. For a moment she believed it to be another delusion; but it was repeated and careless of the astonished sentry she answered it. She skirted the upper parapet and first garden with a fair assumption of dignity, and entered the dim twilight of a long arbor covered with wisteria vine and ivy. Here she picked up the tail of her gown and sped onward, and then up flight after flight of steps, along wild path and avenues and arbors, and up, up, again, until she suddenly came upon Alexandra followed by her maids and a score of the Hofburg servants. The girls kissed each other formally, although one was palpitating with more than exercise, and the other bulged with news repressed. When they finally reached the library Ranata had never been paler.

“Tell me quickly!” she exclaimed. “This change--these changes--why have I received no official information? What does it all mean?”

“That the Emperor has practically washed his hands of you, my dear, and that your day for receiving official information is over--for which I hope you are duly thankful. It has been a long and weary tussle, but Fessenden has won on every score but the last: he was set on marrying you in the Hofburg, but there your father held out. They were at it alone for two hours, and even Fessenden was limp when he left the palace, while the poor Emperor went to bed and slept ten hours instead of seven. No argument nor reasoning could move him. In so far as he could punish and humiliate you he would; moreover, he wishes the public to know nothing of the affair until it is over. Fessenden was forced to give way, partly because he didn’t want to be the death of him, partly because every delay involves too much risk. So, my dear, prepare for the shock--they are all coming to-morrow--the Emperor, my father and Fessenden, the Archdukes and Constitutional Cabinet--to witness the oath of renunciation, the Archbishop to administer it--not a woman but myself and Maria Leopoldina--no wedding-gown--I begged him to let me bring one, but he said you should be married in a travelling-dress and hat and go from the chapel to the yacht. He is fearfully upset, and I confess my knees shook when I received his summons to the Hofburg yesterday. He gave me my official instructions, if you like to call them that, in less than ten minutes, and then wouldn’t even shake hands with me, much less kiss me. Well--there you are! Of course, if you want to retreat it is not too late.”

The words had dinned into Ranata’s ears like the inharmonious clashing of many bells, and her mental attitude was little less homogeneous. Her conquering sensation was one of profound humiliation, accompanied by a vivid appreciation of all she was renouncing. In less than forty-eight hours she would be no longer the daughter of a great empire, Archduchess of Austria and Princess of Hungary, but a _citoyenne_, a unit of a huge and heaving republic. And, barring the unavoidable ceremony of renunciation and the distinguished witnesses, she was to be married and despatched as were she one of her own maids. Was love so tremendous a thing that it was worth the barter of birthright and the loftiest state to which a mortal might be born? Ranata had driven forth most of her traditions, but she was the descendant of eight centuries of kings, and her Americanism was yet in the making. She looked hard into the future, and wondered. At this juncture Alexandra produced a letter.

“It is from Fessenden. I will leave you alone with it if you will tell me where I am to sleep. I dined on the train, but I’d like to get into something loose.”

Ranata took the letter. It warmed her hand and she smiled. “You had better take my aunt’s room,” she said. “It has two beds, and to-morrow night I will sleep with you there. I have been using the state bedroom, as it has fewer associations, but I shall have to give that to my father. What on earth are we to do with all those people? Some will have to go to the villa up on the hill, or to the hotel in Trieste--this castle is not so large as it looks. I suppose Fessenden will sleep on the yacht? Thank Heaven there will be plenty to think about. What time do they arrive?”

“At half-past four, on a special train--so that the Emperor may dine as usual at five. The ceremonies are to be performed on the following morning, and your father’s train will leave for Vienna at twelve. My father and I start in the evening for Genoa, whence we sail for New York. I suspect the Emperor hates the thought of coming here, but in his present frame of mind it is the less of two evils.”

Ranata escorted Alexandra to the simple blue and gray bedroom with its two pathetic little beds, then went to the state bedchamber in which she had lodged for the past fortnight. It was a superb and stately room, in which, like the rest of the castle, one might yet be comfortable. The old French bedstead was of massive gilt, with high and twisted pillars, but open above; and on the walls and on the furniture was the crimson brocade wrought with the Mexican eagle and imperial crown; a tapestry which the prince who ordered it had never seen. Contemporary kings, a pope and a queen, with their coats-of-arms above the frames, covered much of the walls; and most of those who had sat to please their friend were dead. Beyond was the great audience-chamber, hung and furnished with the same imperial crimson, but with fewer paintings: the Emperor of Austria when young; Elizabeth in her exquisite and high-spirited youth; and Maximilian in his ermine, looking still, majestic as was his figure, the gentleman and the scholar and no more--the heavy open mouth the index to his failure in the alien rôle. Continuing the great suite were similar rooms, where the eagle and the crown deepened to blood shade in the twilight.

Ranata looked about her lingeringly. It was all a mockery, to be sure. Had her father possessed a proper sense of humor he would have burned the tapestries and the portrait, done all that he could to obliterate the memory of a fiasco which would have been one of the passing absurdities of history had it not been for the untimely finish of an estimable man and the more cruel fate of his wife; nevertheless it was impressive in its high and perfect harmonies and in its serious intent, and it expressed sufficiently all that she was about to renounce. Moreover, she was leaving the loveliest and most various country in Europe--for what? She might have this beautiful castle for her own did she remain Archduchess of Austria, and in Europe there must always be a thousand compensations that could never be found in a new country among a crude and alien people, were love less than she had dreamed. A composite of woman seemed to come forth from the shades and warn her that love was not all, nor yet enough, for man demands all, yet so little, giving less in return. The music of the Chardash rose, as the ghost of the dead women drifted on; and then the words of Sarolta. But in a moment she lit a candle and read Fessenden’s letter.

XXXVII

They arrived on the following afternoon, the Emperor and his American guests, his relatives, his primate, two or three members of his household, and his ministers. It was raining when they left the train at the little mountain-station, and there was no driveway, no alternative but to walk down the steep and winding paths and stairs, sheltered by the umbrellas the lackeys held over them. As the long file under the umbrellas emerged from the arbor into the garden, the Emperor picking his way daintily on his diminutive toes, and the Archbishop holding up his gown with both hands, while the gorgeous flunkies streamed with rain, the sight was not as imperial as it should have been, and two girls in an upper window giggled irreverently. Being uncertain of their status, they left Maria Leopoldina to receive in solitary state, and did not appear until dinner; but when this solemn hour arrived, Ranata, in an evening-gown of pale-green velvet and all her pearls, entered the audience-chamber where the party was assembled, greeted her father and the guests as she had done many times before, and led the Archbishop down to dinner. With Fessenden it was not possible to exchange more than a flash.

It was a dreary function. The Emperor did not utter a word, although he was graciously pleased to intimate that his guests might talk if they could. Mr. Abbott ate his restricted meal with an expression of grim honor, and felt himself exempt from verbal expression. The Emperor, perhaps with a corresponding sense of irony, had asked him to occupy the state bedroom, lodging himself in the little camp-bed with its tentlike curtains, beloved of the sailor in Maximilian. The archdukes and ministers mumbled at each other; Fessenden and Ranata were many feet apart. Even Alexandra was depressed, and stared at the ugly old masters on the walls, longing for the solace of Zrinyi. Maria Leopoldina was still in a state of bewilderment and horror, which made her fearful of attempting speech lest she gibber. At times the ticking of the clock in the ceiling above the table could be distinctly heard.

After dinner the Emperor and three of his friends retired hastily to the study for a game of whist, the others scattered, and Ranata and Fessenden found a few moments alone in Carlotta’s boudoir in the tower.

For a time there was no conversation; then Fessenden placed his hands on her shoulders and held her from him, his eyes narrowing to a fiery point.

“Do you realize that I have won?” he said--“that you and I are changing the face of the world?”

“Yes--Alexandra has told me everything. I think you more wonderful than ever--but--is it for the best? Changes should come in the slow course of events.”

“No change occurs that the world is not ready for. The world has never been readier for the extermination of Russia, particularly now that she has become a menace to the United States. And the sooner Europe is a republic the better.”

“I believe you care more for this part of your accomplishment than for me.”

His eyes relaxed and the fires spread.

“No,” he said; “I do not. And we are all mere tools, my dear.”

“If I were still superstitious,” she said a while later, “I should feel very uncomfortable. I am sure this is a subtle revenge of my father’s--not only to marry me in this castle, but to force me to embark from the very spot on which Maximilian said good-bye to Europe forever. Your yacht is where the ship stood which took him to Mexico. Not that my father wishes me any such terrible fate, but he believes me to be superstitious, and that I shall be punished by my imagination, if not by my conscience. But it is too late for that! And Maximilian failed because he was Maximilian. I believe you could not fail if you tried.”

XXXVIII

The next morning at ten o’clock the Emperor and his guests entered the great brown and gold and crimson throne room with its imposing frieze of Hapsburg rulers, its illustrated genealogy of the blended houses of Hapsburg and Lorraine, crowned so naïvely with Maximilian and Carlotta, its eleven graceful chandeliers, and its meagre and apologetic throne. This the Emperor, in the full-dress uniform of an Austrian general, ascended with no apparent sense of its incongruity, thankful, no doubt, that it stood ready for the occasion. Before it was a table spread with a formidable-looking document. On either side of the throne stood the archdukes and the ministers, also in full uniform. The Primate, in his robes of ceremony, faced the Emperor, and Fessenden stood close to the table, his father beside him. The rain had passed, the gay southern sunshine flooded the fine room, where, for the first time in its history, an emperor stood on its mockery of a throne. It had been built for balls and other functions of young and wealthy royalty, and in those days the crimson tapestries had not been woven.

A moment after the Emperor had taken his position on the throne, Ranata, accompanied by Alexandra, and for the last time by an Obersthofmeisterin, entered and walked proudly up the room. She wore, not the sombre frock her father had had in mind when he issued the imperial fiat that she should marry in travelling-dress, but an elaborate and beautiful costume of white cloth. The Emperor scowled, but felt himself helpless, for she also wore a hat, albeit with plumes that were truly imperial, and framing and enhancing a beauty which might have been conventionalized and half obscured by orange-blossoms and lace. She wore the pearls which her skin always seemed to reflect, her eyes sparkled, there was a faint pink in her cheeks, a deeper hue in her lips, and she had never borne herself with a more subtle blending of triumphant beauty and the dower of eight centuries of kings. She looked so happy that even her relatives smiled in involuntary sympathy, although they had never disapproved of a Hapsburg more. As for Fessenden, who had been beating a light tattoo on the table, staring at the document, he stood suddenly erect, his eyes flashing their pride and delight; and when they stood together before the throne they seemed to fill the room with their victorious youth, and to obliterate every memory of failure and tragedy.

The Emperor stood speechless for almost two moments. Age might have atrophied his power to suffer, and religion and philosophy have long since taught him to accept the inevitable with little more than a sigh; nevertheless, in these moments he felt a hot tide of youthful rebellion rise from mould and mildew, and of all the crosses he had been called upon to lift to his shoulders this seemed to him the heaviest. The stillness was so intense that many made a quick movement of uneasiness. The Emperor recovered himself, and in cold grave tones called upon all present to witness that his daughter renounced her rights and titles, and, with her betrothed, all pretensions to the thrones of Austria and Hungary. The terms of the renunciation were then read aloud by the prime-minister of Austria, the Primate administered the oath, the affianced couple signed the document, and Ranata for the moment felt nameless and bewildered.

But the signatures having been witnessed with due solemnity, the party went at once to the little Jerusalem chapel, and Fessenden gave Ranata what her father had taken from her; and, so the Americans and the man in him believed, far more besides. There was no breakfast, for that would involve the drinking of healths with their flowered expressions of approval, their reiterated good wishes and will. The moment the brief ceremony was over the Emperor led the way out to the terrace, and down the long flight to that other terrace whose lower steps were in the sea. A boat--its rowers with tossed oars--awaited the newly wed, and beyond was the yacht in gala dress of flags and banners and pennants.

Fessenden and Ranata were the last to leave the castle. The others stood stiff and straight beside the two short flights of steps leading into the water, the Emperor on the right and slightly in front. The windows in this angle of the castle were suddenly alive with servants, not wholly unsympathetic, but no flunkies lined the long flight to the lower terrace as the bridal couple descended. Did Ranata think of the stately ceremonies in the Hofburg, the dim and perfumed magnificence of St. Stephen’s, the joyous pealing of all the bells in Vienna, the procession to the church of prelates, and military, and royalty in the six-horsed coaches of gilt and glass, that the world had come to see, the congratulations of every sovereign in Europe--all that would have been hers had she married as an Archduchess of Austria is expected to marry? Perhaps; for she was human, and a woman; but doubtless she also reflected that she had spent a goodly part of her life avoiding, with dexterity or obstinacy, such a wedding-day as that; and, Fessenden Abbott remaining unknown to her, she never would have married at all.

But any such fugitive reflections were routed by the prospect of the impending farewell with her father; for the moment her very happiness seemed blighted. It was true she had known him little, that her more congenial older sisters had appropriated what love had not been shocked out of him, but until these last weeks she had had little to forgive, and indirectly she owed her happiness to him; for she had laid its foundations in the period of liberty he granted her. And he was her father, nor was it likely she would ever see him again. He stood like a soldier, staring at the yacht, nothing betraying the genial kindness of his nature. When Ranata, with her husband, reached the landing, the Emperor turned and appeared about to favor her with another of the cold and courteous bows which had been her portion of late; but she saw that he was maintaining the severity of his countenance with an effort, and she approached him and put up her lips timidly. He took her in his arms then and held her closely, and told her that he forgave her, and hoped she would be happy. After that her relatives came forward and embraced her, the other Austrians kissed her hand for the last time, and then Mr. Abbott and Alexandra went with her down the water-steps and into the boat.

“Good-bye, sir, and thank you,” said Fessenden, as he shook hands with his father-in-law. He was turning away when he faced about again. “I should like to tell you,” he added, “that I am not superstitious--and neither is Ranata.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the Emperor. “Well--I am glad--I am very glad.”

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.