And instantly her anger passed; and she went to him and laid her hand on his, where it rested on his sword hilt—while the Archduke spoke quickly.
“Your Excellency does not quite appreciate that the Regent is dealing with a very unruly subject, and one who will not countenance the assault on Lotzen Castle. Neither Her Highness nor myself could stand before the Nobles and affirm on honor and unreservedly that the Duke has the Book, though we think we identified it. But more vital still is the fact that I will not consent to any measures which would drive the Duke to destroy the Book. I am determined to establish my right to the Throne by the Laws of the Dalbergs, and not to owe it to the vote of any man nor set of men. Frankly, my lord, I care so lightly for it, that, but for this little woman here, and to make her the Queen which by birth she ought to be, I would not lift a finger nor move tongue to gain the Crown. And if we are to have it—she and I—it must be with all its ancient rights and authority, unsmirched and unimpaired by the politics and obligations of an election.”
The old Count raised his thin, white hand—his lean face flushed, the fine fire of a hotspur youth glowing in his eyes.
“Go, Sire!” he said, “go; and win your crown as a Dalberg should—and would I were young enough to go with you—as it is, I will hold things stanch for you here.”
XIX
LA DUCHESSE
Madeline Spencer, lying in a languorous coil among the cushions in the deep embrasure of an east window, was gazing in dreamy abstraction across the valley to the mountain spur, five miles away as the bird flies, ten as the road runs, where, silhouetted against the blue of the cloudless sky, rose the huge, gray Castle of Dalberg.
For the last hour, she had been training a field glass on it at short intervals, and presently she levelled it again, and this time she saw what she was waiting for—from the highest tower of the keep the royal standard of Valeria was floating.
For a little while she watched the Golden Lion couchant on its crimson field—lashing its tail in anger with every undulation of the fresh west wind, as though impatient to spring into the valley and ravage and harass it, much as the fierce first Dalberg himself had doubtless done—then she slowly uncoiled herself, and gliding from the ledge swished lightly across to the far door, that led into the Duke of Lotzen’s library.
“Ferdinand,” she said, “they have——” he was not there, though she had heard him a moment ago singing softly, as was his wont when in particularly good spirits.
She went to his desk and sat down to wait, her eyes straying indifferently over the familiar papers that covered it, until they chanced upon a slender portfolio, she had never before seen, and which, to her surprise, contained only a sheet of blotting paper, about a foot square, folded down the center. Curious, she opened it, to find, on the inside, the stamp of the royal arms, and the marks of a dozen lines of heavy writing, most of it clear and distinct, and made, seemingly, by two impressions, one at each end of the sheet.