"I had dreamed of nothing as bad as this, Your Majesty," he blurted 228 out, with no sugaring of the truth this time. "I had heard the rumour connecting your most august name with that of a stranger from another country. I feared a young man's impulsiveness. I dreaded a scandal. But forgive me, Your Majesty, this thought of yours is no less than madness. For a man in your position, a morganatic marriage would spell ruin——"
"A morganatic marriage was in my mind, I admit," the Emperor cut him short once more. "But I saw the unwisdom, the injustice of that, and decided differently."
"Praise be to heaven!" devoutly ejaculated the Chancellor, who, in calmer moments, believed himself an atheist.
"I decided that, rather than lose something dearer than life, as dear as honour, I would make this lady—this peerless lady—Empress of Rhaetia," Maximilian went on.
With a cry the Chancellor sprang up, the veins in his forehead full to bursting. His eyes glared like those of a bull that receives the death-stroke. His working lips and the hollow sound in his throat 229 alarmed the Emperor, who, for a few grim seconds, feared the worst. But the iron heart of old Eberhard von Markstein was not to be stilled by a single blow.
He muttered a word which the younger man ignored, though it smote his ears sharply. Then, after a silence potent with meaning, and punctuated with a gasp, the Chancellor "found himself" again.
"No, Your Majesty; no, I say!" he panted.
"But I say yes, and no man shall give me nay. I have thought it all out and I see the path before me," insisted Maximilian. "I will make her a countess first; she shall be Countess of Salzbrück. Later, she shall be Empress."
"Your Majesty, it is impossible."
"Who dares say it is impossible? Answer me that, Von Markstein. She is already a lady of unimpeachable breeding, reputation, and birth——"