“Exactly. It is, undoubtedly.” He was very calm. “I would not have troubled you with it. But the situation is bad. We are rather helpless.”
“Not—the army too?”
“What can we tell? These things spread like fires. Nothing may happen for years. On the other hand, tomorrow—!”
The Archduchess was terrified. She had known that there was disaffection about. She knew that in the last few years precautions at the Palace had been increased. Sentries were doubled. Men in the uniforms of lackeys, but doing no labor, were everywhere. But with time and safety she had felt secure.
“Of course,” the King resumed, “things are not as bad as that paper indicates. It is the voice of the few, rather than the many. Still, it is a voice.”
Annunciata looked more than her age now. She glanced around the room as though, already, she heard the mob at the doors.
“It is not safe to stay here, is it?” she asked. “We could go to the summer palace. That, at least, is isolated.”
“Too isolated,” said the King dryly. “And flight! The very spark, perhaps, to start a blaze. Besides,” he remind her, “I could not make the journey. If you would like to go, however, probably it can be arranged.”
But Annunciata was not minded to go without the Court. And she reflected, not unwisely, that if things were really as bad as they appeared, to isolate herself, helpless in the mountains, would be but to play into the enemy’s hand.
“To return to the matter of Hedwig’s marriage,” said the King. “I—”