“That may be. Now I must ask you if you are prepared to deny that you took a walk at midnight up there alone with Mr. Abbott; that you managed upon numberless occasions to see him alone—at Buda, as well as at Zrinyi-vár? That he wore Prince Nadasdy’s costume on the night of the fancy-dress ball, and that you both retired simultaneously—”
“I deny nothing,” said Ranata. “I am in no humor to make a sentimental confession. Your Majesty may believe or not that I love him. I have, however, sent him away. That should satisfy you. You will accept my word, I suppose.”
“Your word is the last I should doubt. But I happen to know that human nature is stronger than promises. You will not send for him, but he will return. He is a young man with an exceptional record for attaining his ends. If he manages to see you alone again after a separation”—he spread out his little hands with the grace of his Spanish ancestors—“I should not answer for the consequences. If you were your mother I should have no apprehension, for she was devoid of passion; but you are a Hapsburg, and God knows I have had knowledge enough of the weakness of my race to act promptly when I am graciously vouchsafed a timely warning.”
“What are you going to do about it?” asked Ranata—unconsciously, in her quick suspicion, using the American vernacular, although her language was German; her father had never found it necessary to learn English.
This time the Emperor met her eye fully, although his heart quaked. “I have determined that it is time for you to marry,” he said in a louder tone than he was sensible of in time.
Ranata laughed. She was surprised at her rudeness. The disrespectful ebullition was due partly to nervousness; but the Emperor’s brave announcement had also struck at the quick of her humor.
His Majesty’s ruddy face deepened in hue, but he had too difficult a task to accomplish to permit himself the luxury of a personal sensation. He had steeled his heart against pity; to give himself up to anger was unworthy, and he brushed the emotion aside. He would have been glad to see his daughter happy, but the stoicism of lonely majesty had been immutably set in his case by the many and agonizing personal experiences which he had weathered into a healthy and tolerable old age. Princes were born to earthly martyrdom tempered by much casual consolation. If their women were forced to play their part without the compensations, that was the decree of God, who made kings, and they must suffer and make no complaint. As a rule they did, and it was the manifest duty of him who was divinely permitted to govern to see that they found no opportunity to do otherwise. “You are overwrought, I fear,” he said tactfully. “Did you sleep well after your pilgrimage?”
“Perfectly. May I ask whom your Majesty has considered as a son-in-law?”
The Emperor made a slight motion that in a person of less graceful dignity might have been mistaken for a squirm. He had no doubt of the wisdom of his choice—his own choice he believed it to be—for his relative, if stern and unbending, a disciplinarian of the first rank, was neither brutal nor cruel, nor, if met with a discreet submission, unamiable. The idea of handing over his potential daughter to this Gibraltar among husbands, who had responded with enthusiasm to the invitation to marry a beautiful and wealthy princess, had taken full possession of the apprehensive mind of the old monarch; but he had not planned to break the name until after the right amount of preparation. He had anticipated that Ranata would dissolve into tears and perhaps more tempestuous emotions, under cover of which he could retreat, to communicate in writing the fulness of her fate. But there was no sign of a tear in the large angry eyes transfixing him, and her full fine mouth, with its short upper lip and unsatisfied corners, looked as if a sob had never shaken it.
“Well?” she asked.