Stubber had scarcely crossed the threshold of the room when he appeared to appreciate the exact frame of his master's mind. It was the very essence of his tact to catch in a moment the ruling impulse which swayed for a time that strange and vacillating nature, and he had but to glance at him to divine what was passing within.
“So then,” broke out the Prince, “here we are actually in the very midst of revolution. Marocchi has been stabbed in the Piazza of Carrara. Is it a thing to laugh at, sir?”
“The wound has only been fatal to the breast of his surtout, your Highness; and so adroitly given, besides, that it does not correspond with the incision in his waistcoat.”
“You distrust everyone and everything, Stubber; and, of course, you attribute all that is going forward to the police.”
“Of course I do, your Highness. They predict events with too much accuracy not to have a hand in their fulfilment. I knew three weeks ago when this outbreak was to occur, who was to be assassinated,—since that is the phrase for Marocchi's mock wound,—who was to be arrested, and the exact nature of the demand the Council would make of your Royal Highness to suppress the troubles.”
“And what was that?” asked the Duke, grasping a paper in his hand as he spoke.
“An Austrian division, with a half-battery of field-artillery, a judge-advocate to try the prisoners, and a provost-marshal to shoot them.”
“And you 'd have me believe that all these disturbances are deliberate plots of a party who desire Austrian influence in the Duchy?” cried the Duke, eagerly. “There may be really something in what you suspect. Here's a letter I have just received from La Sabloukoff,—she 's always keen-sighted; and she thinks that the Court at Vienna is playing out here the game that they have not courage to attempt in Lombardy. What if this Wahnsdorf was a secret agent in the scheme, eh, Stubber?”
Stubber started with well-affected astonishment, and appeared as if astounded at the keen acuteness of the Duke's suggestion.
“Eh!” cried his Highness, in evident delight. “That never occurred to you, Stubber? I'd wager there's not a man in the Duchy could have hit that plot but myself.”