"And will that be obedience to your conscience?" asked the Duke, "if so, mark its inconsistency, and sometimes doubt its text. Before I quitted the Empress, I brought her to apologise to me, for the offensive innuendos she had dropped at the beginning. I brought her to tears, when I reminded her how I had served her and her daughter, in the establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction. But before I accomplished this conquest over a self-willed and powerful sovereign, I removed every impression from her mind that I had any other objection to the proposed union, than your youth, and the lady being so much your senior. In the moment of reconciliation, I smoothed your path. I alleged that my duty towards my new country, obliged me to write thither, to ask permission of the King and Queen of Spain to form a foreign alliance, before I could formally give my consent. In this, the Empress acquiesced. Here then, is one delay secured. Meanwhile, should you appear to concur heartily in the arrangement, I have little doubt of winning upon Elizabeth to grant the investiture before the messenger can return; the engine will then be restored to our own hand; and we may protract and excuse, and finally break away without danger."
"No, Sir," replied Louis, "I abhor this marriage, because of the want of all honourable principle in the woman who had infatuated me; and I never will move one step to avoid it, by becoming the thing I abhor. If my liberty is only to be regained by acting a falsehood,—a treacherous falsehood! I submit to my cruel destiny, and I will marry her."
"That is to yourself alone," replied the Duke, rising from his chair with a disturbed, and even a severe countenance. "But, remember, it is your duty to await the return of my messenger from Spain."
"I will wait, my father, as long as you please. But, I repeat, it is with no purpose to deceive. If I ever appear again in the presence of the Countess Altheim, to permit her to consider me as her future husband; it must be with the intention, on my part, to become so at the prescribed time. My weak vassalage to beauty has brought me to this; and heavy will be the punishment, but it is more tolerable than my own utter contempt." "You must visit her this evening."
"Not alone, my Lord! That never shall be exacted from me. Till she bears my name, no power shall compel me to be alone with her!"
"Who, then, must be your companion? I cannot."
"Tell the Empress, I demand it of her tenderness for the Countess's honour, that some person be always present when we meet. Should I ever find it otherwise, in that instant I will withdraw."
"In that, you are right," replied his father; and quitted the apartment.