The Grand Duchess pointed a plump, dimpled forefinger toward a sixteenth-century writing-table. "The telegram's there, if you care to see it," she remarked crossly. She did not often lose her temper, or at least, not for long; but she had really borne a great deal of late, and, as she had observed, it was all Sylvia's fault, therefore it was Sylvia's turn to suffer now.
On the desk lay a crumpled piece of paper. Sylvia picked it up and read, written in English:
"Somebody making inquiries here about De Courcys. Beg to advise you 189 immediately to explain all, or leave present place of residence; avoid almost certain unpleasantness. Have just heard of complications.—WEST."
"Well, what do you think of that?" irritably demanded the Duchess, vexed at Sylvia's calmness. "Isn't it enough to make any one faint? That I—I, a woman in my position should be forced to appear a—er—an adventuress! If it were not so dreadful, it would be absurd. You might show a little feeling, since it is for you that I have done it all."
"I have plenty of feeling, mother," said Sylvia. "Only I—seem somehow rather stunned just now. I suppose Lady West means that busy bodies have been trying to find out things about the De Courcys. We have provided for most contingencies, but we had not thought of spies—till to-night."
"I allowed myself to be led by you," declared the Grand Duchess, "when I ought to have controlled you, as my child. I should never have allowed myself to be placed in such an ignominious plight. But here I 190 am, in it; and here you are also—which is quite as bad, if not worse. You have brought us into this trouble, Sylvia; the least you can do is to get us out. And, after all"—brightening a little—"there is, thank goodness, a way to do that. It ought not to be so very difficult."
"What way—do you mean?"
"I wonder you ask—since there is only one. Stop this foolish child's game that you have deluded me into playing; explain everything to the Emperor and to Baroness von Lynar, and be prepared to turn the tables on our enemy whoever that may be. Your dear father always said that I had a head for emergencies, once I could get the upper hand of my nerves, and I hope—I think, he was right."
"But what you propose is impossible, mother."
Sylvia spoke in a low, constrained voice, and the Grand Duchess, rising from among her pillows, suddenly observed for the first time that there was something strange in the girl's manner and appearance. She admired her daughter, as a bewildered hen-mother might admire the beautiful, incomprehensible ball of golden fluff that sails calmly 191 away beyond her control in a terrifying expanse of water, while she herself can only cluck protest from the bank. The Grand Duchess had almost invariably yielded her will to Sylvia's in the end; but she told herself that she had done so once too often, and the weaknesses of her past buttressed her obstinacy in the present.