“Ambition. What else is it? Surely you do not believe these tales they tell—old wives’ tales of plot and counterplot!”
“But the Chancellor—”
“Certainly the Chancellor!” mocked Olga Loschek. “Highness, for years he has had a dream. A great dream. It is not for you and me to say it is not noble. But, to fulfill his dream to bring prosperity and greatness to the country, and naturally, to him who plans it, there is a price to pay. He would have you pay it.”
Hedwig raised her face and searched the other woman’s eyes.
“That is all, then?” she said. “All this other, this fright, this talk of treason and danger, that is not true?”
“Not so true as he would have you believe,” replied Olga Loschek steadily. “There are malcontents everywhere, in every land. A few madmen who dream dreams, like Mettlich himself, only not the same dream. It is all ambition, one dream or another.”
“But my grandfather—”
“An old man, in the hands of his Ministers!”
Hedwig rose and paced the floor, her fingers twisting nervously. “But it is too late,” she cried at last. “Everything is arranged. I cannot refuse now. They would—I don’t know what they would do to me!”
“Do! To the granddaughter of the King. What can they do?”