"One moment first. You shall listen. I confess I knew you were in the garden with one whom we need not name To break in upon such a tête-à-tête, for a man of my inferior rank, would be almost a crime, yet I would have committed that crime to save you. You are so innocent, so beautiful—I feared for you; I suspected—what I know now from your words has happened. I would have saved you this pain, if I could—but I was too late, only in time to see you coming in, to hear against my will—your exclamation. I waited to say that I can at least avenge you. I am at your service—your knight as in days of old. Tell me what you would have me do, and I will do it."
If Sylvia's eyes had been daggers, he would have fallen dead at her feet. For an instant she looked at him in silence. Then: "I would have you leave me, never to dare come into my presence again," she said. "And now I choose to pass."
Mechanically he gave way, and she swept by, with lifted head and the 184 proud bearing of an offended queen.
Otto was stricken dumb. Dully he watched her move across the long room to the door which led out into a corridor, not through the drawing- room. He saw the changing lights and shadows on her satin dress, as she passed under the chandelier; he saw the reflection of its whiteness mirrored on the polished floor. She was beautiful to him no longer, for he hated her because of his mistake, and because she had read his mind. She had seen the truth there, under his falsehoods, as he saw the reflection on the surface of shining oak. She knew that he was a moral coward, and that, had she accepted his fantastic offer, he would never have ventured to enter the lists as her knight against the Emperor. Fortunately, she had undoubtedly quarrelled with Maximilian, and would not carry tales. It would indeed be a sorry day for Otto if reconciliation ever came; and if by some strange chance of the future it seemed imminent, he must not let it come.
"Heavens! Does she fancy herself an Empress?" he sneered beneath his 185 breath. "Before Eberhard has finished with her, she may not even be what she is now!"
His ears still burned as if she had struck them. He could not return to the drawing-room until they had cooled. There was no hope for him now with Mary de Courcy, whatever the Chancellor's mysterious telegrams might contain, but he was too furious to mourn over lost hopes, lost opportunities. Eberhard was evidently trying to learn something to the girl's disadvantage and Otto's aid was only to have been bought in case of failure. Now, he was in a mood to offer it for nothing, and it occurred to him that he would ride over to Schloss Markstein early in the morning.
CHAPTER X
"THE EMPEROR WILL UNDERSTAND"
IT was for the refuge of isolation that Sylvia fled to her own room. Between her bedchamber and the Grand Duchess's was a boudoir, which they shared; and it was the door of this intermediate room that gave admittance, from the corridor outside, to both. To the girl's surprise, as she entered—her one comfort the assurance of being undisturbed—her mother looked reproachfully up from a pile of silken cushions on the sofa. Josephine was rubbing her hands, and the air was pervaded with the pungent fragrance of sal volatile.