"She doesn't look it?"
"Not a day more than eighteen. Might be younger. I never was so surprised to learn a woman's age. By the way, I heard her telling Von Lynar last night, a propos of our great Rhaetian victory in that month and year, that she was born in June, '79. If so she would now have been twenty-one. It was difficult to believe her even as much. When she'd spoken, I remember she gave a sudden start and blush, looking across the room at her mother, as though she were frightened. I suppose she hoped there was no copy of this great red book at Lynarberg."
"That thought might have been in her mind," grunted the Chancellor, "or——" He left his sentence unfinished, and sat, with prominent, 150 unseeing eyes fixed in an owlish stare on the open page of Burke.
"Did you really mean what you said a few minutes ago about my marriage?" Otto ventured to attract his brother's attention. "Because if you did——"
"If I did—what then?"
"I might—try to please you in my choice of a wife."
"Be more explicit. You mean you would endeavour to show this Miss de Courcy that a bird in the hand is worth an Emperor in the bush—a bramble bush at that?"
"Yes, I would do my best. I have—er—some advantages."
"You have. And I was on the point of suggesting that you should make the most of them in her eyes, before—you brought me this book." The large forefinger tapped the page of De Courcys, while two grim lines of dogged purpose framed the Chancellor's long-lipped mouth.
"And now you've changed your mind?" There was a distinct note of 151 disappointment in "handsome Otto's" voice.