From without all looked grim and gloomy, in keeping with that strange fate that follows the hapless Hapsbourgs; yet beyond those black walls, in the farther wing of the Imperial palace were life and gaiety and music; indeed there was presented perhaps the most magnificent scene in all Europe.
The first Court ball of the season was at its height, and the aged Emperor Francis-Joseph was himself present – a striking figure in his uniform and orders.
Filled with the most brilliant patrician crowd in all the world – the women in tiaras and blazing with jewels, and the men in Court dress or in gorgeous uniforms – the huge ballroom, with its enormous crystal electroliers and its gold – and – white Renaissance decorations, had never been the scene of a more dazzling display. Archdukes and archduchesses, princes and princesses, nobles and diplomatists, ministers of the empire and high functionaries of State danced or gossiped, intrigued or talked scandal; or those whose first ball it was worried themselves over points of etiquette that are always so puzzling to one not born in the Court atmosphere.
The music, the scent of the flowers, the glare and glitter, the beauty of the high-born women, the easy swagger of the bestarred and beribboned men, combined to produce a scene almost fairy-like.
Laughter rang from pretty lips, and men bent to whisper into the ears of their partners as they waltzed over the perfect floor, after having paid homage to their Emperor – that lonely, broken man whose good wife, alas! had fallen beneath the assassin’s knife.
A sovereign’s heart may be broken, but he must nevertheless keep up a brave show before his subjects.
So he stood at the end of the room with the Imperial circle about him, smiling upon them and receiving their homage, although he longed to be back in his own quiet room at the farther end of the palace, where their laughter and the strains of music could not reach his ears.
One pale, sweet-faced woman in that gay, irresponsible crowd glanced at him and read his heart.
Her fair beauty was extremely striking, and her neat-waisted figure perfect. Indeed, she had long ago been acknowledged to be the most lovely figure at the Austrian Court – the most brilliant Court of Europe – a countenance which even her wide circle of enemies could not criticise without showing their ill-nature; a perfect countenance, which, though it bore the hallmark of her imperial birth as an Archduchess, yet was sweet, dimpled, and innocent as a child’s.
The Princess Claire – Cecille-Marie-Alexandrine was twenty-four. Born and bred at that Court, she had three years before been married to the Crown Prince of a German house, the royal house of Marburg, and had left it for the Court at Treysa, over which her husband would, by reason of his father’s great age, very soon be sovereign.
At that moment she was back in Vienna on a brief visit to her father, the Archduke Charles, and had taken a turn around the room with a smart, well-set-up man in cavalry uniform – her cousin Prince George of Anhalt. She was dressed in ivory white, wearing in her fair hair a wonderful tiara; while in the edge of her low-cut bodice there showed the crosses and ribbons of the Orders of St. Elizabeth and Teresa – decorations bestowed only upon Imperial princesses.
Many eyes were turned upon her, and many of the friends of her girlhood days she saluted with that charming frankness of manner which was so characteristic of her open nature. Suddenly, while walking around the room, a clean-shaven, dark-haired, quick-eyed man of thirty in Court dress bowed low before her, and in an instant, recognising him, she left her cousin’s side, and crossing spoke to him.
“I must see your Imperial Highness before she leaves Vienna,” he whispered quickly to her in English, after she had greeted him in German and inquired after his wife. “I have something private and important to tell you.”
The Crown Princess looked at him quickly, and recognised that the man was in earnest. Her curiosity became aroused; but she could ask no questions, for a hundred eyes were now upon her.
“Make an appointment – quickly, your Highness. I am here expressly to see you,” he said, noticing that Prince George was approaching to carry her off to the upper end of the room, where the members of the Imperial family were assembled.
“Very well. In the Stadtpark, against the Caroline Bridge, at eight to-morrow night. It will be dark then.”
“Be careful that you are not followed,” he whispered; and then he bowed deeply as she left him.
When her cousin came up he said, —
“You are very foolish, Claire! You know how greatly such a breach of etiquette annoys the Emperor. Why do you speak with such people?”
“Because I like to,” she answered defiantly. “If I have the misfortune to be born an Imperial Archduchess and am now Crown Princess, it need surely not preclude me from speaking to people who are my friends?”
“Oh, he is a friend, is he? Who is the fellow?” inquired the Prince, raising his eyebrows.
“Steinbach. He is in our Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
“You really possess some queer friends, Claire,” the young man said, smiling. “They will suspect you of being a Socialist if you go on in this way. You always shock them each time you come back to Vienna because of your extraordinary unconventionality.”
“Do I?” she laughed. “Well, I’m sure I don’t care. When I lived here before I married they were for ever being scandalised by my conduct in speaking to people. But why shouldn’t I? I learn so much them. We are all too narrow-minded; we very little of the world beyond the palace walls.”
“I heard yesterday that you’d been seen walking in the Kamthnerstrasse with two women who were not of the nobility. You really oughtn’t to do that. It isn’t fair to us, you know,” he said, twisting his moustache. “We all know how wilful you are, and how you love to scandalise us; but you should draw the line at displaying such socialistic tendencies openly and publicly.”
“My dear old George,” she laughed, turning her bright eyes to him, “you’re only my cousin and not my husband. I shall do exactly what I like. If it amuses and interests me to see the life of the people, I shall do so; therefore it’s no use talking. I have had lots of lectures from the Emperor long ago, and also from my stiff old father-in-law the King. But when they lecture me I only do it all the more,” she declared, with a mischievous laugh upon her sweet face. “So they’ve given me up.”
“You’re incorrigible, Claire – absolutely incorrigible,” her cousin declared as he swung along at her side. “I only do hope that your unconventionality will not be taken advantage of by your jealous enemies. Remember, you are the prettiest woman at our Court as well as at your own. Before long, too, you will be a reigning queen; therefore reflect well whether this disregard of the first rule of Court etiquette, which forbids a member of the Imperial family to converse with a commoner, is wise. For my own part, I don’t think it is.”
“Oh, don’t lecture me any more for goodness’ sake,” exclaimed the Crown Princess with a little musical laugh. “Have this waltz with me.”
And next moment the handsome pair were on their way down the great room with all eyes turned upon them.
When, ten minutes later, they returned to join the Imperial circle about the Emperor, the latter motioned his niece towards him.
“Come to me when this is ended,” he said in a serious voice. “I wish to talk to you. You will find me in the white room at two o’clock.”
The Crown Princess bowed, and returned to the side of her father, the Archduke Charles, a tall, thin, grey-haired man in a brilliant uniform glittering with orders.
She knew that his Majesty’s quick eye had detected that she had spoken with the commoner Steinbach, and anticipated that she was to receive another lecture. Why, she wondered, was Steinbach there? Truth to tell, Court life bored her. She was tired to death of all that intrigue and struggle for place, power, and precedence, and of that unhealthy atmosphere of recklessness wherein she had been born and bred. She longed for the free open life in the country around Wartenstein, the great