“Why, you’re cramped with sitting so long!” cried the Princess. “Be careful! But Leopold will give you his arm. Leopold will take you down, won’t you, Leopold?”
And the Imperial Eagle, who had hoped for better things, meekly allowed another link to be added to his chain.
CHAPTER V
LEO VERSUS LEOPOLD
“
Ach, Himmel!” exclaimed Frau Yorvan; and “Ach Himmel!” she exclaimed again, her voice rising to a wail, with a frantic uplifting of the hands.
The Grand Duchess grew pale, for the apple-cheeked lady suddenly exhibited these alarming signs of emotion while passing a window of the private dining-room. Evidently some scene of horror was being enacted outside; and—Virginia and Miss Portman had been away for many hours.
It was the time for tea in England, for coffee in Rhaetia; Frau Yorvan had just brought in coffee for one, with heart-shaped, sugared cakes, which would have appealed more poignantly to the Grand Duchess’s appetite, if the absent ones had been with her to share them. Naturally, at the good woman’s outburst, her imagination instantly pictured disaster to the one she loved.