“Your Majesty!” he faltered. “I did not see—I could not know. Most humbly I beg your Majesty’s gracious pardon. If your Majesty will but hold me blameless with my master—”
“Never mind yourself, and never mind your master,” broke in the Chancellor. “Open that door at the end of the hall, and announce the Emperor and Count von Breitstein.”
The unfortunate jäger, approaching a state of collapse, obeyed. The door of the dining-room, which Leopold knew of old, was thrown open, and a quavering voice heralded “His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, and the Herr Chancellor Count von Breitstein.”
The scene disclosed was as unreal to Leopold’s eyes as a painted picture; the walls of Pompeian red; the gold candelabra; the polished floor, spread with the glimmering fur of Polar bears; and in the center a flower-decked table lit with pink-shaded lights, and sparkling with gold and crystal; springing up from a chair which faced the door, a young man in evening dress; sitting motionless, her back half turned, a slender girl in bridal white.
At sight of her the Emperor stopped on the threshold. All the blood in his body seemed rushing to his head, then surging back upon his heart.
The impossible had happened.