Trafford read, and at the conclusion he whistled. What did it mean, what could it mean but one thing? The situation presented itself as a syllogism of amazing but irrefutable argument. The Princess was going to be crowned. It was undeniable that he had contributed largely to that consummation. The corollary was a ceremony of marriage between himself and the newly-elected sovereign. No wonder the smile gave place to a frown of deep bewilderment. No wonder he passed his fingers repeatedly through his thick and stubborn hair. The compact that was now disturbing his peace of mind had been entered into with the lightest of light hearts. The night he had first met the Princess he had been a soldier of fortune primed with good wine and the spirit of reckless adventure. But since then things had progressed with him, as with the state of Grimland, rapidly.
The condition of spiritual stagnation in which he had visited Grimland was being slowly but surely overcome by fresh interests and rousing incidents. Three days ago it would have seemed a capital jest to go through the ceremony of marriage with an exceptionally beautiful girl with a kingdom for her dowry. Now it seemed like a piece of wanton blasphemy in the worst possible taste.
He put a cigarette between his lips, and took a match from a heavy glass bowl that did duty as matchbox. He struck it on the ribbed side of the bowl, but the match burned his fingers before even it made acquaintance with the tobacco.
Supposing he went through this ceremony, he reasoned, and supposing in this topsy-turvy country the ceremony was approved and ratified by the State—what then? A queer thrill ran through him at the supposition, but he shook his head fiercely. The more he saw of the Princess the more he liked her, and the more he realised the difference between liking and loving. There were strange ideals still lurking in the recesses of his unconventional brain, and to wed a woman for any less reason than a deep spiritual devotion seemed to him a prostitution of God's choicest gifts. And he could not honestly call his regard for the high-couraged little Schattenberg a deep spiritual devotion. It was clean and healthy as the north wind, and every whit as wholesome and refreshing—but was it even approximately like the sentiment he had entertained for the pedestalled Angela Knox?
He made a second attempt to light his cigarette, and this time with success. He blew out a great puff of blue smoke and gazed earnestly into its unravelling depths. And for a prolonged minute of self-hypnotism he was dematerialised out of the picturesque uniform of a Grimland officer, and was standing, smug and frock-coated, in a New York drawing-room. Before him was a very tall woman with a wonderfully correct profile and an abundance of honey-coloured hair. This was the creature to whom he had offered the worship of his life, the woman whose refusal of his suit had thrust him to the very brink of the grim precipice of which no man knoweth the bottom. He gazed and gazed and even admired—but he was unmoved. Slowly the smoke faded, and the dream in the smoke, and he laughed aloud.
Self-analysis is a difficult game for all, and to one of his complex temperament an altogether hopeless proceeding. And so, as if to blow the crowded thoughts from his brain, he stepped to his high window overlooking the city, and flung open the casement. The bells of the cathedral were pealing joyous music into the winter air. The city was en fête. The flag of Grimland was flying from all public and semi-public buildings.
Shops, private houses, and hotels were gay with bunting and festoons of artificial flowers. And the sun,—as if to honour the new dynasty with its more than royal majesty,—was gilding men's handiwork till tinsel became silver and gold, and every banner a brave thing of joy and colour and heartfelt holiday.
Within two days of the supposed death of Karl the new dynasty was to be inaugurated with all the pomp that State and Church could lend the occasion.
Things had progressed, not at a run, but at a gallop. And for this Father Bernhardt was responsible. The man was a wonder. He may have been mad, but if so his madness was the distortion of a splendid brain, not the aberration of a weak one. He had gathered the reins of government into his own hands with the skill and confidence of a born ruler. There was no anarchy, no confusion, no hiatus in the city's ordering. Men were conciliated whom it was wise to conciliate. Others were over-awed, a few were suppressed. He seemed to know intuitively everyone's sentiments and every man's abilities. Doctor Matti was made Prefect of Police, Von Hügelweiler became Captain of the Guard. Trafford was given an official position on the staff of the Queen's army. Generally speaking, there was little redistribution of existing authorities. The army welcomed the new régime, believing that a change of dynasty might involve a change from the peaceful policy of the twenty-second Karl. Business men and professional men accepted it even when they did not welcome it. There was no alternative. Karl, so they believed, was dead. His son was far away at Weissheim, and was far too young a little person to rule the mad whirlwind of his country's policies. So the fait accompli became the thing accepted, and as the joy bells rang out their message the contagion of their silver tongues turned the hearts, even of the lukewarm, to glad allegiance to the young Queen.
"Poor little Princess," mused Trafford, as he gazed out at the sparkling panorama of white roofs and snow-crested battlements, "what an ordeal lies before you, to-day and to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow! It is the day after to-morrow one fears in Grimland. The sun does not always shine at Weidenbruck, and the cathedral bells are not always instruments of joy."