“But I do not understand. Where is the message to go to?” asked Volenski, somewhat amused at the clerical diplomat’s ruffled composure.
“All the way to St. Petersburg, my son, to be laid at the most beautiful feet in the world—those of the Princess Marïonoff—on behalf of his Catholic and Apostolic Majesty Franz Jozef I.”
“And your Eminence has undertaken to convey this unwieldy parcel all the way to St. Petersburg, and are giving up your holiday in order to satisfy the Emperor’s caprice?” asked Volenski in astonishment.
“What could I do?” said the Cardinal impatiently. “You know how insinuating the Hapsburg family can be—its respected chief more so than anyone in the world. His Majesty had extracted a promise from me and forced these things into my hand before I had fully recovered from the astonishment in which his request had plunged me.”
“So now your Eminence intends putting off your trip to Carlsbad indefinitely and delivering the Emperor’s message, first of all?” asked Iván, who suddenly became nervous as to how these altered plans would affect his own movements.
“Yes! I am anxious to get rid of these brittle things—for brittle they are to an alarming degree—I should never know a moment’s peace till they were out of my hands, and safe in those of the fair sorceress, who has succeeded in inveigling Franz Jozef into giving her so precious an heirloom. We will start for St. Petersburg to-morrow.”
“We?”
“Yes, my son! I am afraid you must, like myself, find your holiday indefinitely postponed. Having once got so far, I shall push on to Peterhof at once, and see his Majesty the Tsar, for whom his Holiness has entrusted me with a memorial, and settle all my work in Russia, with your help, as quickly as possible.”
Volenski did not reply. In his mind there arose the fact of the great additional safety to his own secret mission, if he were actually travelling in attendance upon his Eminence. Clearly this change of plans was for the good of the cause.
“I shall be quite ready to start to-morrow,” he said at last with ill-concealed alacrity, and an involuntary sigh of relief.