"And your letter was addressed to him?"
"Even so, madame."
"Then this passion of which you speak is your old passion—alchemy."
"Yes, it is. I had promised you to give it up, but it proves stronger than I. Not to annoy you, I have ever since worked secretly in my laboratory. I have just conceived a new idea. I am about to try the experiment of consolidating small diamonds into one large one, by means of a burning-glass."
The empress answered this with a hearty, happy laugh, and went up to her husband with outstretched hands.
"Franz," said she, "I am a simpleton; and all that has been for tormenting in my heart is sheer nonsense. My crown does not prevent me from being a silly woman. But, my heart's love, forgive my folly for the sake of my affection."
Instead of responding to this appeal, the emperor stood perfectly still, and gazed earnestly and seriously at his wife.
"Your jealousy," said he, after a moment's silence, "I freely forgive, for it is a source of more misery to you than to me. But this jealousy has attacked my honor as a man, and that I cannot forgive. As reigning empress, I render you homage, and am content to occupy the second pace in Austria's realms. I will not deny that such a rule is irksome to me, for I, like you, have lofty dreams of ambition; and I could have wished that, in giving me the TITLE, you had allowed me sometimes the privileges of a co-regent. But I have seen that my co-regency irritated and annoyed you; I have, therefore, renounced all thought of governing empires. I have done this, not only because I love you, Theresa, but because you are worthy by your intellect to govern your people without my help. In the world, therefore, I am known as the husband of the reigning empress; but at home I am lord of my own household, and here I reign supreme. The emperor may be subordinate to his sovereign, but the man will acknowledge no superior; and the dignity of his manhood shall be respected, even by yourself."
"Heaven forbid that I should ever seek to wound it!" exclaimed Maria Theresa, while she gazed with rapture upon her husband's noble countenance, and thought that never had he looked so handsome as at this moment, when, for the first time, he asserted his authority against herself.
"You HAVE wounded it, your majesty," replied the emperor, with emphasis. "You have dogged my steps with spies; you have suffered my character to be discussed by your attendants. You have gone so far as to compromise me with my own servants; forcing them to disobey me by virtue of your rights as sovereign exercised in opposition to mine as your husband. I gave Gaspardi orders to deliver Riccardo's note to me alone. I forbade him to tell any one whither he went. YOU took my note from him by force, and committed the grave wrong of compelling a servant, hitherto faithful, to disobey and betray his master."