“To marry whom?” asked Sir Horace.
“That's the very question which he cannot answer himself; and when pressed for information, can only reply that 'she is an angel.' Now, angels are not always of good family; they have sometimes very humble parents, and very small fortunes.”
“Hélas!” sighed the diplomatist, pitifully.
“This angel, it would seem, is untraceable. She arrived with her mother, or what is supposed to be her mother, from Corsica; they landed at Spezzia, with an English passport, calling them Madame and Mademoiselle Harley. On arriving at Massa they took a villa close to the town, and established themselves with all the circumstance of people well-off as to means. They, however, neither received visits nor made acquaintance with any one. They even so far withdrew themselves from public view that they rarely left their own grounds, and usually took their carriage-airing at night. You are not attending, I see.”
“On the contrary, I am an eager listener; only, it is a story one has heard so often. I never heard of any one preserving the incognito except where disclosure would have revealed a shame.”
“Your Excellency mistakes,” replied she; “the incognito is sometimes, like a feigned despatch in diplomacy, a means of awakening curiosity.”
“Ces ruses ne se font plus, Princess,—they were the fashion in Talleyrand's time; now we are satisfied to mystify by no meaning.”
“If the weapons of the old school are not employed, there is another reason, perhaps,” said she, with a dubious smile.
“That modern arms are too feeble to wield them, you mean,” said he, bowing courteously. “Ah! it is but too true, Princess;” and he sighed what might mean regret over the fact, or devotion to herself,—perhaps both. At all events, his submission served as a treaty of peace, and she resumed.
“And now, revenons à nos moutons,” said she, “or at least to our lambs. This Wahnsdorf is quite capable of contracting a marriage without any permission, if they appear inclined to thwart him; and the question is, What can be done? The Duke would send these people away out of his territory, only that, if they be English, as their passports imply, he knows that there will be no end of trouble with your amiable Government, which is never paternal till some one corrects one of her children. If Wahnsdorf be sent away, where are they to send him? Besides, in all these cases the creature carries his malady with him, and is sure to marry the first who sympathizes with him. In a word, there were difficulties on all sides, and the Duchess sent me over, in observation, as they say, rather than with any direct plan of extrication.”