“Marianne, I love you too tenderly—I cannot marry you!”
Marianne burst into a fit of laughter. “A strange reason for rejecting my hand, indeed!” she said. “It is so original that in itself it might almost induce me to forgive your refusal. And yet I had counted so firmly and surely upon your love and consent that I had made already the necessary arrangements in order that our wedding might take place to-day. Just look at me, Gentz. Do you not see that I wear a bridal-dress?”
“Your beauty is always a splendid bridal-dress for you, Marianne.”
“Well said! But do you not see a myrtle-wreath, my bridal-wreath, on the table there? Honi soit qui mal y pense! The priest is already waiting for the bride and bridegroom in the small chapel, the candles on the altar are lighted, every thing is ready for the ceremony. Well, we must not make the priest wait any longer. So you decline being the bridegroom at the ceremony? Well, attend it, then, as a witness. Will you do so? Will you assist me as a faithful friend, sign my marriage-contract, and keep my secret?”
“I am ready to give you any proof of my love and friendship,” said Gentz, gravely.
“Well, I counted on you,” exclaimed Marianne, smiling, “and, to tell you the truth, I counted on your refusal to marry me. Come, give me your arm. I will show you the same chapel which the Prince von Reuss has caused to be fitted up here in the building of the Austrian embassy. The servants will see nothing strange in our going there, and I hope, moreover, that we shall meet with no one on our way thither. At the chapel we shall perhaps find Prince Henry—that will be a mere accident, which will surprise no one. Come, assist me in putting on this long black mantilla which will entirely conceal my white silk dress. The myrtle-wreath I shall take under my arm so that no one will see it. And now, come!”
“Yes, let us go,” said Gentz, offering his arm to her. “I see very well that there is a mystification in store for me, but I shall follow you wherever you will take me, to the devil or—”
“Or to church,” she said, smiling. “But hush now, so that no one may hear us.”
They walked silently through the rooms, then down a long corridor, and after descending a narrow secret staircase, they entered a small apartment where three gentlemen were waiting for them.
One of them was a Catholic priest in his vestments, the second the Prince von Reuss, Henry XIII., and the third the first attache of the Austrian embassy.