She rose to her feet, opened her sable cloak, and disengaged a pearl brooch from her neck. Bending over him so that her breath swept his cheek, she fastened the trinket to the lapel of his green tunic, and finished his subjugation with a long look into his eyes.
"A true seer," she answered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE WAR ON THE WINE-SHOP
Outside the confectioner's Gloria let down her veil again, and turned her steps towards the Neptunburg. Trafford, at her request, took the opposite direction. His habitually fierce features wore a grimmer look than ever,—for his brows were knit and his teeth set,—and there was a dangerous gleam in his grey eyes. He was the prey to a host of indefinable emotions, that worked his turbulent spirit to its most aggressive mood. Disappointment, a tinge of bitterness, coupled with a wild sense of intoxication,—caused by the Princess's last relenting act of grace,—had strung his fine nervous system to a point when it demanded violent action as the only possible relief. Had he been at Harvard he would have kindled a bonfire; had Karl been within a reasonable radius of his activity he would have headed a cutting-out expedition to capture that unhappy monarch. As it was, he walked fast, bending his steps unconsciously towards his hotel. The sky showed a pale blue between the lines of house-tops, for as usual the sun was having its morning duel with the white fog that haunts the streets of Weidenbruck at this period of the year. The sun was winning, too,—as it generally did for an hour or so,—and even causing the huge icicles that hung from the eaves to drip a little at their sharp and glistening extremities. But Trafford noted none of these things.
"I am very ill or very much too well," he said to himself, in diagnosis of his own feverish unrest. "If I were an Elizabethan courtier I should write a sonnet; if I were an ordinary American I should play tennis or golf. Being neither, I am suffering the torments of a wild beast in a small cage; my brain is bursting from enforced inaction. Saunders, who is always right, calls me a madman, and to justify his opinion I shall probably break a shop window in about two minutes."
Whether or no he had the slightest intention of putting his insane threat into execution, he looked behind him to see if he were observed. A couple of men were following a few paces in his rear. To his excited fancy there seemed something sinister about their muffled forms. One carried a thick stick, and both seemed to look on him with eyes of malice.
"As I live, I believe they are going to attack me," he said gleefully to himself. "No," he reflected, "the wish is father to the thought. There is not the slightest reason why they should attack me. They are probably respectable burghers doing a morning's shopping in the Königstrasse."
The original idea, however, fascinated him, and he stopped; the men stopped too. He went on, and the men went on, and a backward glance told him that they were summoning a third person from across the street, and pointing at him as an object either of curiosity or offence. He continued his walk with a wild hope in his heart, and in the course of a hundred yards the hope became a certainty. A small crowd was now dogging his footsteps, and such uncomplimentary references as "traitor," "spy" and "schweinhund" assailed his ears. The situation would have alarmed most men, and would have accorded even "Nervy" Trafford a certain measure of uneasiness under ordinary conditions. But in his present state of psychical unrest the atmosphere of danger had a marvellously relieving effect. The fever went out of his bones, his blood slackened to a normal speed, his brain adjusted itself to meet the crisis. He was still spoiling for a fight, but seething pugnacity had given way to ice-cool combativeness. He walked on without quickening his pace, and though he looked neither to right nor left, he felt instinctively that the numbers of his retinue were swelling fast. The hum of muttered execrations rose to a stronger note, and every yard of his progress brought fresh idlers in his wake. From time to time he passed a policeman, but these were gorgeously uniformed officials whose idea of upholding civic dignity was to adopt a pose of statuesque aloofness to things human and divine.
Presently a piece of frozen snow struck him on the nape of his neck. He swung round in a fury, and as he did so the foremost of the pack struck his shako from his head.