Ranata laughed. “She should be glad of a holiday, poor soul. I had rather be a poor prisoner of a princess than a slave of a duenna like an Obersthofmeisterin—I have an idea! Why not Sarolta? She is Hungarian. She is in every way suitable. She would be persona grata here, is loved and trusted by my father, and while standing to the world as an impregnable outpost, would really give me a free hand, and with all her cynical soul enjoy the experiment. I shall write to her at once to manage it—as only she can. That would be the last thing necessary to make me feel as if I had been born again. Now, Alexis, let us give our attention to these rooms. I think I shall have cloth of gold in these panels, and curtains of these Turkish embroideries. My writing-room must be blue. Shall I have my bedroom in cloth of silver and white?—and my dressing-room in these old-rose brocades? And all the furniture must be new—nothing ancestral here! There is an intoxicating freedom in the air of Hungary—ah! I really do feel as if I had been born again.”
IX
The Princess Sarolta was obscuring the moon with the smoke-clouds of her big black cigar. It was nine o’clock—dinner in the Királyi Palota was now served at half-past seven—and the court could smoke behind the pillars and the vines of the long stone terrace beneath the west windows of the private apartments of the King without consideration of possible field-glasses on the heights above. The Princess, who normally resembled a mummy, looked more like a witch in her encircling fumes, and her eyes glittered and blinked behind the red disk of her cigar. They were black eyes, and their fires in youth, and indeed long after Nature had given her more than one admonishing nip and claw, had recklessly leaped to so many other combustible hearts that even now the court gossips disentangled the pulsing tales of her past from others more commonplace. But with wrinkles and man’s manifest preference for her conversation had come not only reform but the evolution of a severe and uncompromising code of morals. She astonished Vienna for a number of years by the vehemence of her criticisms and her treatment of certain noble dames whose fires were still unquenched, or who found in intrigue that taste of liberty which knocks alluringly upon even the doors of Austria. With the mellowness of approaching age the enthusiasm of the Princess had tempered somewhat, and it was observed that she grinned behind her big cigar when an after-dinner scandal exhaled a faint perfume of novelty; but by this time her fame as a she-dragon was securely established. Her tactics, combined with a fortune inherited coincidently with her reform, from a relative who had married a wealthy and, as it proved, childless Jewess of Budapest, gave her a unique and impregnable position which made her the most natural guardian in Austria for a young princess who had left her father’s roof to hold court in his most conspicuous possession. The Emperor, who was a little afraid of Sarolta, but who asked her advice on all momentous domestic questions, bundled her off to Budapest with a deep sigh of relief. Her reputation as a dragoness relieved him of much of the anxiety with which he had entered upon this radical experiment, and he had not chanced to take note of her mellowing. But Ranata had, and, believing herself exempt from the weakness to which the Princess still showed her teeth, knew that she would have the real authority, while the Obersthofmeisterin sat scowling in the foreground, her wrinkles impassive above the chuckling within. As for Count von Königsegg, Sarolta had begun his education while unwrinkled, and not only had done him many good turns since, but had taught him to believe that there was one greater diplomatist in Austria than the Princess Sarolta Windischgrätz, and that was himself. Therefore when, after a hasty and pleading note from Ranata, and a long and humorous petition from Alexandra, she gave the minister to understand that it was his wish she assume charge of his interests in Hungary, it was but a matter of hours before her women were packing her boxes. She had come to Buda in full possession of his confidence.
The situation amused her intensely, but while she was too wise ever to betray a confidence or to share her amusement of a man with his enemy, yet she did not scruple to use any secret she might possess when engaged in the manipulation of human destinies. She cared as little for Königsegg as for the Emperor, sentimental memories being no longer insistent. But Nature had denied her children, and she had a considerable hoard of affection in her erratic but wholly human depths. Now that Rudolf was dead, she cared more for Ranata and Alexandra than for any one in the world, and was determined, to use the phrase of her American protégée, that they should have the “time of their lives.”
To-night she grinned amiably at them from the depths of a rocking-chair, long since presented to her by Alexandra, which accompanied her wherever she went. The party was a small one: the Obersthofmeisterin and her charges, two young Hungarian ladies-in-waiting of her selection, the Countess Vilma Festetics and the Countess Piroska Zápolya, and two invited guests, Prince Béla Illehazy, a magnate, who, in simple evening dress, looked a middle-aged and somewhat humorous man of the world, and Count Zrinyi, whose national fire and still youthful ardors—he was thirty-five in years—had given him over to love of an American on the night of a great and memorable dinner. It had been decided that the Grand Chamberlain and other court officials were only to serve at great functions, and that those who were in waiting upon the Emperor during his annual sojourn were to give their services to the Archduchess when she demanded them.
Zrinyi was leaning against one of the pillars, his black eyes flaming down upon Alexandra, who smiled upon him indulgently; she thought him a nice boy who might be useful in the cotillion and in general advice of a lighter nature. They were all discussing the momentous question of the first entertainment to be given by the new court.
The dictum of the Princess Sarolta, that it must be a great ball, to which men and women should come in the ancient dress of Hungary, had been received with approval by all but Prince Illehazy, who scowled at his girth.
“I thought I should burst the other night,” he admitted. “And I must say that my native costume always makes me feel more or less a fool. I suppose I have lived too much elsewhere.”
“You are no patriot,” said his old friend, whose eye, as it followed his, twinkled with some malice. “I insist that you give up Vienna and Paris this winter and remain here as my private cabinet.”
“You may need help,” he murmured, and he looked at Ranata.