The princess also rose, and confronted her son proudly and defiantly. "Do you hold me responsible for this mismanagement?" she asked. "Lay these grievances rather to the charge of your guardian, who for twenty years pretended to control your estates. You must deal with your subordinates, and not with me."
"Frank is the only one of them who still recognizes me as master," exclaimed Waldemar, bitterly; "all the others are at your beck and call. They do not openly refuse to obey me, but they evade my orders whenever they conflict with yours."
"You are dreaming," said the princess, with an air of affected superiority; "Frank has prejudiced you even against your mother."
"I have not trusted to his reports, I have made close scrutiny with my own eyes; and now I ask you, who has transferred the leased estates from German to Polish hands, and that, too, upon ruinous terms and without guaranties or security? Who has confided the management of the forests to a body of men who care nothing for my interests, but who will render good service to your cause? Who, finally, has made the superintendent's position so intolerable that his only alternative was resignation? Fortunately he had the energy to summon me to the rescue, and I have come at this late hour to find all in revolt against me. You have recklessly sacrificed everything to the interests of your family and your cause,--my servants, my property, and even my reputation, for I am supposed to be in league with you. Your four years' control of my estates has brought them to the verge of ruin. You know this as well as I; you have known it all along, but your only aim has been to prepare Villica for the Revolution."
The princess had listened in silent and ever increasing astonishment; this was not the first time that she had heard just such words in these very rooms. The elder Nordeck had often enough reproached his wife with sacrificing everything to family traditions, but bursts of fury had been his only method of opposition. He had sought to attain his end by torrents of threats and rude invective which had only elicited contemptuous smiles from his proud, fearless wife. She had well known that this parvenu possessed neither mind nor character, that both his likes and dislikes sprang from the basest impulses, and her disdain for the man was only equalled by her indignation that she had been compelled to accept him as a husband. She would not have been at all surprised if Waldemar had enacted a similar scene before her eyes; the fact that he did not, confounded her. He faced her with perfect composure, and with annihilating certainty hurled at her accusation after accusation, proof after proof. That mental excitement which he so powerfully repressed was only too evident; the vein on his right temple swelled portentously, and he clutched convulsively at the back of the chair near which he stood. His look and voice, however, betrayed nothing; they were entirely under control.
Some moments elapsed before the princess answered; her pride would stoop to no denial or concealment, and both, in fact, would have been useless. She could rely no longer upon Waldemar's blindness; she must resort to new tactics.
"Your fears are exaggerated," she said; "do you really apprehend that all Villica will break out in revolt, merely because I have now and then used my influence in favor of my protégés? I am sorry if any of them have abused my confidence and failed in their duty to you; but unreliable people abound everywhere, you have only to discharge all such as are in your service here. Why do you reproach me? When I came here, the estates were virtually without a master; as you did not concern yourself about them, I felt justified in assuming control, and my management has been better than that of your agents. I have certainly managed in my own way. I have always openly sided with my family and my country. My whole life bears witness to this, and I require no justification at your hands. You are my son, as well as the son of your father; the blood of the Morynskis also courses through your veins."
Waldemar started as if impelled to protest vehemently against this assertion, but controlled the momentary impulse.
"For the first time in your life you concede to me a share in your own blood," he rejoined, bitterly; "hitherto you have only regarded me as a Nordeck, and despised me accordingly. What if this sentiment has never been expressed in words, are not looks fully as eloquent? I have often observed the glance with which your eyes have turned from Leo or from your brother to rest upon me. You have sought to banish every remembrance of your first marriage as a humiliation and a disgrace; as the wife of Prince Zulieski, and the mother of Leo, you did not trouble yourself about me; you would never have come to me if circumstances had not compelled you. I do not censure you in the least; my father may have wronged you deeply, so deeply that you cannot possibly love his son; let us not therefore appeal to emotions and sympathies which have never existed between us. I shall very soon be compelled to prove to you that not a drop of the Morynski blood courses through my veins. You may have bequeathed it to your Leo--I am made of other material."
"I see it," said the princess, half despairingly,--"of other material than I thought. I have never known you."