“In the library—I’ll get them.”... He dropped the Archduke’s about his shoulders, and the sergeant did the same for him.
As they gained the Avenue, the cathedral bell struck three.
“A nice hour for an old man like you, Bernheim, to be going home,” said the Archduke.
A quizzical smile came into the Aide’s stern face.
“A lady called me,” he replied.
XII
THE SOLE SURVIVOR
Ferida Palace, the residence of His Royal Highness the Duke of Lotzen, on the Alta Avenue half a mile or so beyond the Epsau, is a great, rambling pile of gray stone, of varying height and diverse architecture, set in the midst of grounds that occupy two entire squares, and are surrounded by a high, embattled wall, pierced with four wide entrances, whose bronze gates are famous in their craftsmanship.
Here the Duke lived in a splendor and munificence almost rivaling the King himself, and with a callous indifference to certain laws of society, that would have scandalized the Capital had it become public knowledge. But in his household, the servant who babbled, never babbled twice; he left Dornlitz quite too suddenly; and those who were wise learned quickly that they lost nothing in wage nor perquisite by being blind and dumb. For Lotzen did not skimp his steward—all he required was skillful service, and that what occurred within the Palace must not go beyond the walls. Nevertheless, in conduct, he was not the habitual libertine and roué,—the contrary was, in truth, the fact—but he proposed to have the opportunity to do as he liked when the fancy moved him—and to have no carping moralist praying over him and then retailing his misdeeds with unctuous smirks of pious horror. Not that he cared a centime for their horrors or their prayers, but because it were not well to irritate unduly the King, by doings which he might not countenance, if brought formally to his attention—though the Duke was well aware that Frederick troubled himself not at all how he went to the devil, nor when, save that the quicker he went the better.
And so it was, that he had not hesitated to bring with him the woman of raven hair and dead-white cheek, and to install her in the gorgeous suite in the west wing of the Ferida, where others, as frail but far less fair, had been before her—and the world never the wiser—just as now it was not the wiser as to Madeline Spencer’s presence. The time was not yet for her to show herself, and in the meantime she had remained secluded; she was too well known in Dornlitz to escape recognition; and even Lotzen dared not, at this exigency, so spurn public sentiment as to sponsor the adventuress whom he had procured to pose as wife to the Archduke Armand.
She had come with him to the Capital with deep misgiving, and only after much urging and jeweled caresses; though not the least of the inducements was the hope of annoying the Princess Dehra—for whom she had conceived the most violent hate. By herself it would, of course, have been a fatulously foolish hate, but with Lotzen, and under the peculiar situation existing at Court, there was a chance—and it was this chance she meant to play for and to seize. And besides, it promised the excitement and ample financial returns that were the mainsprings of her existence.