“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 embarrassed, 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 passion 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 shore 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 attaché to Rome or to Petersburg. It is the wisest course.”
“Then your Highness really intends to banish me?” he said hoarsely, 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, passionate 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 passionate words fell upon her ear, sighed heavily, and in silence opened the door and passed 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 Archduchess, 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 fête– 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