“Once, some years ago, sire, I came to you with a plan. The Princess Hedwig was a child then, and his late Royal Highness was—still with us. For that, and for other reasons, Your Majesty refused to listen. But things have changed. Between us and revolution there stand only the frail life of a boy and an army none too large, and already, perhaps, affected. There is much discontent, and the offspring of discontent is anarchy.”
The King snarled. But Mettlich had taken his courage in his hands, and went on. Their neighbor and hereditary foe was Karnia. Could they any longer afford the enmity of Karnia? One cause of discontent was the expense of the army, and of the fortifications along the Karnian border. If Karnia were allied with them, there would be no need of so great an army. They had the mineral wealth, and Karnia the seaports. The old dream of the Empire, of a railway to the sea, would be realized.
He pleaded well. The idea was not new. To place the little King Otto IX on the throne and keep him there in the face of opposition would require support from outside. Karnia would furnish this support. For a price.
The price was the Princess Hedwig.
Outside, Nikky Larisch rose, stretched, and fell to pacing the floor. It was one o’clock, and the palace slept. He lighted a cigarette, and stepping out into a small balcony which overlooked the Square, faced the quiet night.
“That is my plea, sire,” Mettlich finished. “Karl of Karnia is anxious to marry, and looks this way. To allay discontent and growing insurrection, to insure the boy’s safety and his throne, to beat our swords into ploughshares”—here he caught the King’s scowl; and added—“to a certain extent, and to make us a commercial as well as a military nation, surely, sire, it gains much for us, and loses us nothing.”
“But our independence!” said the King sourly.
However, he did not dismiss the idea. The fright of the afternoon had weakened him, and if Mettlich were right—he had what the King considered a perfectly damnable habit of being right—the Royalist party would need outside help to maintain the throne.
“Karnia!” he said. “The lion and the lamb, with the lamb inside the lion! And in, the mean time the boy—”
“He should be watched always.”