'It would not be love if I said otherwise. You would not love me if I said otherwise. You must go, John!'
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE ARREST.
By the following evening tongues were busy in Révonde. Rumour and mystery and an absence of any definite information added zest to the town talk. The broken reports were curious.
Major Counsellor had fallen down the staircase at the British Legation and injured his head, his brow being much contused. His return to Révonde was explained on the ground that Germany and England had joined forces in compelling Selpdorf to lessen the heavy taxation with which Maäsau was burdened. Count Sagan had been seen in the city with a lowering face—ah, yes! it was well known he had a most patriotic distrust of German interference. Madame de Sagan had quarreled with her husband because she had insisted on helping Mademoiselle Selpdorf, who was about to be married to Baron von Elmur, in the choice of her trousseau. Some excitement was being caused in the Guards' barracks by the case of Captain Rallywood, whom Count Sagan accused of using his influence unduly with his brother-officers to forward the projects of Germany. Some even went so far as to say that he was in arrest, and others were found who shook their heads and laughed, professing to be aware of a yet deeper reason for the colonel-in-chief's animosity against the English captain.
Out of all this chaff the one grain of truth was that Counsellor, released by Unziar on the authority of a telegram from Rallywood, had arrived by the first train in the morning and had at once proceeded to the British Legation. There he found Rallywood waiting for him. 'You have seen the Chancellor?' asked Counsellor, looking hard at Rallywood, whose brown face wore a look he had never seen upon it before. 'Why was I released? Am I already too late?'
'No, you are not too late. You must see the Duke at once. Here are your despatches. Good-bye, Major, I'll meet you presently.'
'I shall not in all probability see Duke Gustave again. My part is over and done with. The world, my dear John, never sees a national policy until it begins to fly. There is no credit for hatching the egg. One would almost think it hatched of itself. Occasionally the egg is found to be addled, and then the old birds make away with it in private. But don't go yet. How have you managed to keep these? What does it mean?'
'It means principally that you must forget you have been robbed, that Elmur's game is up, and that you were mistaken in your opinion of the Chancellor.'