I was still groping for the guiding thread in all this tangled skein of trouble when the first of my appointed visitors was announced, and I had to assume my role of hard-headed business man in regard to the proposed loan.
He was a man high up in the Government, and I listened gravely to his proposals, putting a number of objections much as I had done in Vienna; and then said that I had heard so much of the instability of the Government and of plots and conspiracies, that I must take time to satisfy myself what they all meant.
“You need have no apprehension, Mr. Bergwyn,” he declared blandly. “The Throne and the Government have never been more secure; and now that the vexed question of the succession is about to be so happily settled, there is not the slightest ground for alarm.”
“To be settled how?”
“By the marriage of the Princess Gatrina to Prince Albrevics. All faction will end with that.”
“And Russia?”
He waved his hands deprecatingly. “Russia will accept the situation. She always does, when once it is established.”
“But the Queen’s popularity?”
“Was never greater. Her strength is paramount.”
“And her intentions as to her brother’s succession?”