"Listen, Franz, my brother. A magnificent horizon spreads before you. Look at it. Part of the Duchy of Posen, the ancient Kingdom of Poland with Lithuania and the Ukraine, the Poland of the Jagellons, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Yours. And after you, Maximilian's. For Ernest, Bohemia, Hungary, the Southern Slav lands of Austria, Serbia, the Slav coast of the Eastern Adriatic and Saloniki;—two Empires in one. And the states of those who have despised Sophie Chotek——" he paused expressively and snapped his jaws, "the Austrian Erbländer will come into the Confederated German Empire." He paused again and then went on more quietly, "Between us two a close and perpetual military and economic alliance, to be the arbiters of Europe under the Divine will, dominating the West and commanding the road to the East." He paused and took a fresh cigarette from the box on the table.
"It is what I have dreamed," murmured the deep voice of the Archduke. "And yet it is no dream, but reality. Fate plays into my hands. At no time have we been in a better position."
It was the turn of the Archduke to walk the floor of the arbor with long strides, his hands behind him, his gaze bent before him.
"Yes, civilization, progress—all material things. But the Church—you forget, Majestät, that your people and mine are of different faiths. Some assurance I must have that there will be no question——"
"Willingly," said the other, rising. "Do not my people serve God as they choose? For you, if you like, the Holy Roman Empire reconstituted with you as its titular head, the sovereignty of central Europe intact—all the half formulated experiments of the West, at the point of the sword. This is your mission—and mine!"
The two men faced each other, eye to eye, but the smaller dominated.
"A pact, my brother," said the man in the hunting-suit, extending his hand.
The Archduke hesitated but a moment longer, and then thrust forward. The hands clasped, while beside the two, the tall man stood like a Viking, his great head bent forward, his forked beard wagging over the table.
"A pact," repeated the Archduke, "which only Death may disrupt."
They stood thus in a long moment of tension. It was he they called Majestät who first relaxed.