Sarolta, whose heart, as the astute Vilma well knew, was aching, appeared to consider deeply. Finally she shrugged her shoulders. “I cannot see what you could accomplish; but you might let her see you occasionally in the Franzensplatz and give her a little comfort. The rest of us cannot go near it. Alex, of course you will return with me as soon as I have closed the palace. Zrinyi, I think you and Vienna had better be strangers for the present.”
“I go to Vienna the day you do,” announced Zrinyi. “The King, on second thoughts, will do nothing more to irritate Hungary. If he ordered me out of Vienna I should return here and tell the whole story. Molnár would go off his head and demand the liberty and return of the Princess as the price of peace in the country. In any case he could set the tongues of all Europe wagging, and the King would find himself outwitted. He is shrewd enough to know this—or his ministers are. They will pursue a very moderate and conservative course outside the Hofburg. After all, this is the twentieth century.”
“Who would have thought it!” said Alexandra. “Will you come with me, Count, while I write my telegram, and then send it yourself?”
“I would take it to Berlin if I could get there as quickly,” said Zrinyi gallantly.
“Count,” murmured his tormentor as they left the room, “you are a brick. I am a grateful soul. I feel uncommonly like rewarding you.”
XXXIII
For twenty-four hours Ranata’s brain whirled to no machinery but her wrath. To that succeeded an energetic desire to escape. All her prejudices and separate ambitions had gone down in that final moment of disillusion, and she was determined to marry Fessenden Abbott as soon as she was beyond the reach of her father. But her brain, fertile as it was, and abnormally active, could conceive no method of leaving unobserved that great palace of many corridors never for a moment deserted. She was forced to relinquish her intention to bribe the guards, for there were constantly three together, and it would seem that they were changed every half-hour. To assume the disguise of a servant was equally impracticable, for not one of those in attendance upon her reached her shoulder, and they were as closely watched as herself. Her rooms were not high above the ground, but a guard paced beneath her window day and night, and the guard-room was opposite. She was in the very heart of a great European capital preeminent in science and art, the civilized virtues and vices, not a hundred yards from cabs and crowded streets, and no mountain fortress could enclose her more securely.
When Maria Leopoldina arrived, after a delay welcome to both, Ranata greeted her with some warmth, but frankly asked her to remain in her own rooms as much as possible. This the duenna was more than willing to do. Not only had she returned to her exacting post from her pleasant retirement with a reluctance she dared not express to her sovereign, but she had a very considerable understanding of her former charge, and was by no means unsympathetic. She recognized the necessity of drastic measures in so lamentable a state of a princess’s affections and temper, and she should do her duty cost her what it might; but she would obey the letter of her instructions only, and leave the prisoner such freedom as she still could find within her own walls.
And then the days dragged themselves out. Ranata saw no one but her cousin and servants, received no message from the world; even Maria Leopoldina was not permitted the solace of a newspaper. Ranata seldom sat down, but moved about until all her body ached with weariness, pausing every few moments to look down upon the Franzensplatz, through the sheltering lace of the curtain, in the hope that Fessenden Abbott would saunter through with intent to give her courage. If she tried to forget her plight in a book she would fling it down presently and fly to the window lest she miss him.
In these first hours she was too hard for lovers’ regrets, so wroth was she at the insult put upon her individuality, and so great her astonishment that with all the intellect and character of which she had vaunted herself she was as helpless to move in behalf of her own destiny, as poor in resource, in these primitive circumstances to which her father and sovereign had reduced her, as any little fool of the Middle Ages. Although she had been warned by her opportunities of close observation against the devouring and repulsive selfishness of those who pushed the culte du moi to its modern limits, yet few women had so proudly developed their individuality, few had so jealously insisted upon the right of the brain to its own thoughts, of the character to develop in its own way and as far as human limitations would permit. If she had until her visit to Hungary been submissive to the laws of her position it had been because she had deliberately chosen submission, and aloofness, as her part, as her highest duties to her house; not because she stood in the slightest awe of her father, or recognized his right to direct her thoughts and conduct. It is doubtful if she could have loved Fessenden Abbott had she not recognized in him a spirit as free as her own, and an enlightenment and a sympathetic understanding which would never seek to change nor control her. She had found a mate, not a master, and both being the extreme products of their century, their prospects of a lifelong desire for partnership exceeded those in the great restless sea of awakened intelligence between the highest type and the commonplace. Ranata, in more passionate hours of longing and anguish, had felt the possibilities she relinquished, rather than grasped them with her reason, but now she knew their full significance, and the knowledge helped her to deeper indignation of the mediæval conditions into which she had abruptly been thrust.