“I’ve had a letter from the Crown Prince of Hungaria. It has come to his ears that there is a certain reason for your Majesty’s delay in following up the first overtures for an alliance with his family. Malicious tongues have whispered that your Majesty’s attentions are otherwise engaged; and the young Adalbert has addressed me in a friendly way begging that the rumor may be contradicted or confirmed.”
“I’m not sure that negotiations had gone far enough to give him the right to be inquisitive,” returned Leopold, flushing.
The Chancellor spread out his old, veined hands in a gesture of appeal. “I fear,” he said, “that in my anxiety for your Majesty’s welfare and the good of Rhaetia, I may have exceeded my instructions. My one excuse is, that I believed your mind to be definitely made up. I still believe it to be so. I would listen to no one who should try to persuade me of the contrary, and I will write Adalbert—”
“You must get yourself and me out of the scrape as best you can, since you admit you got us into it,” broke in the Emperor, with an uneasy laugh. “If Princess Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe is as charming as she is said to be, her difficulty will be in choosing a husband, not in getting one. For once, my dear Chancellor, gossip has told the truth; and I wouldn’t pay the Princess so poor a compliment as to ask for her hand, when I’ve no heart left to give her in exchange for it. There’s some one else—”
“It is of that some one else I would venture to speak, your Majesty. Gossip has named her. May I?”
“I’ll save you the trouble. For I’m not ashamed that the common fate has overtaken me—common, because every man loves once before he dies; and yet uncommon, because no man ever loved a woman so worthy. Chancellor, there’s no woman in the world like Miss Helen Mowbray, the lady to whom I owe my life.”
“It’s natural you should be grateful, your Majesty, but—”
“It’s natural I should be in love.”
“Natural that a young man inexperienced in affairs of the heart, should mistake warm gratitude for love. Impossible that the mistake should be allowed to continue.”
Leopold’s eyes grew dark. “In such a connection,” he said, “it would be better not to mention the word ‘mistake.’ I’m glad you are here; for now you can learn from me my intentions toward that lady—”