“Oh, very, very interesting!” said the duke. “But I should prefer something else.”
“And yet, to lead the people!—and then, what about your heroines,—Morgana and Rhodaïs and Bertha,—all those valiant women?”
“Ah! that’s what we need nowadays,” said the duke. “Perhaps one valiant woman like those ancestors of mine would save Morgania!”
“Is Morgania threatened to that degree?” asked Ethel. “We were counting on long excursions into the interior.”
“You come at a bad time for that, Miss Rowrer!”
In a few words he gave an impressive description of the state of the country. Everywhere was the expectation of war, with all its disquiet. Fields were uncultivated, and the region of the Moratscha was already all but emptied of its inhabitants. Bands of fugitives were coming in every day, with a pitiful procession of Christians, chased from Albania by the Turks. “You speak of excursions to the Castellum. I greatly fear you’d not be able to do water-color sketches there. At most you might take kodak shots at brutes always ready to fire on strangers and pillage them. The state of things is insupportable. However, I will have you accompanied by a squad of soldiers.”
“How will it all end?” Phil asked.
“I count on the aid of the Great Powers,” said the duke.
Will and Phil could not help smiling. The duke himself watched the smoke of his cigar with an enigmatic air. Perhaps he saw in it the image of the stability and fixity of design of the Great Powers.
“Don’t count too much on them,” said Will.