Leopold, on the contrary, would never be painted except as a soldier; and it seemed to Egon that no normal girl could help thinking him a far handsomer fellow than the Emperor. For the moment, of course, Miss Mowbray did not notice him, because his Imperial Majesty loomed large in the foreground of her imagination; but the Chancellor had evidently a plan in his head for removing that stately obstacle into the dim perspective.
Egon had not heard Miss Mowbray spoken of as an heiress, therefore, even had there been no Emperor in the way, he would not have worshiped at the shrine. But now, behold the shrine, attractive before, newly and alluringly decked! Egon wondered much over his half-brother’s apparently impulsive offer, and the contradictory command, which had, a little later, enjoined waiting.
He was delighted, however, that he had not been forbidden to make himself agreeable; and his idea was, as soon as dinner should be over, to find a place at Miss Mowbray’s side before any other man should have time to take it. But unluckily for this plan, Baron von Lyndal detained him for a few moments with praise of a new remedy which might cure the Chancellor’s gout; and when he escaped from his host to look for Miss Mowbray in the white drawing-room she was not there.
From the music room adjoining, however, came sounds which drew him toward the door. He knew Miss Mowbray’s soft, coaxing touch on the piano: she was there, “playing in a whisper,” as he had heard her call it. Perhaps she was going to sing, as she had once or twice before, and would need some one to turn the pages of her music. Egon thought that he would much like to be the some one, and was in the act of parting the white velvet portières that covered the doorway, when his hostess smilingly beckoned him away.
“The Emperor has just asked Miss Mowbray to teach him some old-fashioned Scotch or English air (I’m afraid I don’t quite know the difference!) called ‘Annie Laurie,’” the Baroness explained. “He was charmed with it when she sang the other evening, and I’ve been assuring him that the song would exactly suit his voice. We mustn’t disturb them while the lesson is going on. Tell me—I’ve hardly had a moment to ask you—how did you find the Chancellor?”
Chained to a forced allegiance, Egon mechanically answered the questions of the Baroness without making absurd mistakes, the while his ears burned to hear what was going on behind the white curtain.
Everybody knew of the music lesson, now, and chatted in tones of tactful monotony, never speaking too loudly to disturb the singers, never too cautiously, lest they should seem to listen. Once, and then again, the creamy mezzo soprano and the rich tenor that was almost a baritone, sang conscientiously through the verses of “Annie Laurie” from beginning to end; then a few desultory chords were struck on the piano; and at last there was silence behind the white curtains, in the music room.
Were the two still there? To interrupt such a tête-a-tête seemed out of the question, but not to know what was happening Egon found too hard to bear, and the arrival of a telegram for Lady Mowbray came as opportunely as if Providence had had his special needs in mind.
Evidently it was not a pleasant telegram, for, as she read it, the Dresden china lady showed plainly that she was disconcerted. Her pretty face lost its color; her eyes dilated as if she had tasted a drop of belladonna on sugar; she patted her lips with her lace handkerchief, and finally rose from her chair, looking dazed and distressed.