“I travel because you travel, your Majesty,” replied the old man. “It is kind of you to tolerate me here, and I appreciate it.”
Now, they sat facing each other; and the young man, fighting down a sense of guilt—familiar to him in boyish days, when about to be taken to task by the Chancellor—gazed fixedly at the hard, clever face on which the afternoon sun scored the detail of each wrinkle.
“Indeed?” was the Emperor’s only answer.
“Your Majesty, I have served you and your father before you, well, I hope, faithfully, I know. I think you trust me.”
“No man more. But this sounds a portentous preface. Is it possible you imagine it necessary to ‘lead up’ to a subject, if I can please myself by doing you a favor?”
“If I have seemed to lead up to what I wish to say, your Majesty, it is only for the sake of explanation. You are wondering, no doubt, how I knew you would travel to-day, and in this train; also why I have ventured to follow. Your intention I learned by accident.” (The Chancellor did not explain by what diplomacy that “accident” had been brought about.) “Wishing much to talk over with you a pressing matter that should not be delayed, I took this liberty, and seized this opportunity.
“Some men would, in my place, pretend that business of their own had brought them, and that the train had been chosen by chance. But your Majesty knows me as a blunt man, when I serve him not as diplomat, but as friend. I’m not one to work in the dark with those who trust me, and I want your Majesty to know the truth.” (Which perhaps he did, but not the whole truth.)
“You raise my curiosity,” said Leopold.
“Then have I your indulgence to speak frankly, not entirely as a humble subject to his Emperor, but as an old man to a young man?”
“I’d have you speak as a friend,” said Leopold. But a slight constraint hardened his voice, as he prepared himself for something disagreeable.