Stubber nodded sententiously, without a word.
“I never liked that fellow,” resumed the Duke. “I always had my suspicion about that half-reckless, wasteful manner he had. I know that I was alone in this opinion, eh, Stubber? It never struck you?”
“Never! your Highness, never!” replied Stubber, frankly.
“I can't show you the Sabloukoff's letter, Stubber, there are certain private details for my own eye alone; but she speaks of a young sculptor at Carrara, a certain—Let me find his name. Ah! here it is, Sebastian Greppi, a young artist of promise, for whom she bespeaks our protection. Can you make him out, and let us see him?”
Stubber bowed in silence.
“I will give him an order for something. There's a pedestal in the flower-garden where the Psyche stood. You remember, I smashed the Psyche, because it reminded me of Camilla Monti. He shall design a figure for that place. I 'd like a youthful Bacchus. I have a clever sketch of one somewhere; and it shall be tinted,—slightly tinted. The Greeks always colored their statues. Strange enough, too; for, do you remark, Stubber, they never represented the iris of the eye, which the Romans invariably did. And yet, if you observe closely, you'll see that the eyelid implies the direction of the eye more accurately than in the Roman heads. I 'm certain you never detected what I 'm speaking of, eh, Stubber?”
Stubber candidly confessed that he had not, and listened patiently while his master descanted critically on the different styles of art, and his own especial tact and skill in discriminating between them.
“You'll look after these police returns, then, Stubber,” said he, at last. “You'll let these people understand that we can suffice for the administration of our own duchy. We neither want advice from Metternich, nor battalions from Radetzky. The laws here are open to every man; and if we have any claim to the gratitude of our people, it rests on our character for justice.”
While he spoke with a degree of earnestness that indicated sincerity, there was something in the expression of his eye—a half-malicious drollery in its twinkle—that made it exceedingly difficult to say whether his words were uttered in honesty of purpose, or in mere mockery and derision. Whether Stubber rightly understood their import is more than we are able to say; but it is very probable that he was, with all his shrewdness, mystified by one whose nature was a puzzle to himself.
“Let Marocchi return to Carrara. Say we have taken the matter into our own hands. Change the brigadier in command of the gendarmerie there. Tell the canonico Baldetti that we look to him and his deacons for true reports of any movement that is plotting in the town. I take no steps with regard to Wahnsdorf for the present, but let him be closely watched. And then, Stubber, send off an estafetta to Pietra Santa for the ortolans, for I think we have earned our breakfast by all this attention to state affairs.” And then, with a laugh whose accents gave not the very faintest clew to its meaning, he lay back on his pillow again.