“Does my sister complain of me?” muttered Karl haughtily.
“The Duchess of Holstein is in terrible straits,” remarked Count Piper gravely.
“Well,” asked Karl, “are not you, Count, capable of helping my brother-in-law to keep his little duchy?”
The minister was quick to seize his moment. “It is only your Majesty can do that,” he said, and leant towards the King.
“Only I,” repeated Karl stupidly. “And why is that?”
“Who else in Europe,” said Count Piper, “can face at once the King of Denmark, the King of Poland, and the Czar of Muscovy?—who but the son of Karl XI, the grandson of Karl X?”
At this open appeal to pride and vanity the Queen pushed back her chair with a movement of contempt; the young man’s eyes gleamed for a second; he put his hand to his forehead in a confused manner, pushing back the tangled light curls.
“Are you frightened by three such names, like the children with talk of ogres?” sneered the Queen. “Indeed, you look capable, sire, of facing the greatest man in the world!”
“And who is that?” asked Karl, still amazed and stupid.
“Why, that is the Czar of Muscovy,” replied the old woman, composed and vicious and heedless of Count Piper’s look of warning, “the man we shall all be begging for pity soon—that will be a pleasant day for me—a woman who has had such a husband and such a son.”