He admired his fresh color, which was like a girl’s, pointed the waxed ends of his mustache with nervous, cigarette-stained fingers, and thinking of many agreeable things, from baccarat to roulette, from roulette to races, and races to pretty women, he wondered which he had to thank for this summons to the Chancellor. Unfortunately, brother Lorenz knew everything; one’s pleasant peccadilloes buzzed to his ears like flies; there was little hope of deceiving him.
Egon sighed, and his eyes turned mechanically from his own visage on shining steel, to the letter held in an old hand so veined that it reminded the young man of a rock netted with the sprawling roots of ancient trees. He had just time to recognize the writing as that of Adalbert, Crown Prince of Hungaria, whom he knew slightly, when keen eyes curtained with furled and wrinkled lids, glanced up from the letter.
“It’s coming,” thought Egon. “What can the old chap have found out?”
But to his surprise the Chancellor’s first words had no connection with him or his misdeeds.
“So our Emperor is amusing himself at Lyndalberg?”
Egon’s face brightened. He could be cunning in emergencies, but he was not clever, and always he felt himself at a disadvantage with the old statesman. Unless he had a special favor to ask, he generally preferred discussing the affairs of others with the Chancellor, rather than allowing attention to be attracted to his own. “Oh yes,” he answered, brightly. “His Majesty is amusing himself uncommonly well. I never saw him in as brilliant spirits. But you, dear Lorenz. Tell me about yourself. Is your gout—”
“The devil take my gout!”
Egon started. “A good thing if he did, provided he left you behind,” he retorted, meaning exactly the opposite, as he often did when trying to measure wits with the Chancellor. “But you sent for me—”
“Don’t tell me you supposed I sent for you because I wanted consolation or condolence?”