“But you have not been a bad daughter,” the Countess would protest, for the thousandth time. “You have done your duty faithfully. You have stayed here when many another would have been traveling on the Riviera, or—”
“It was no sacrifice,” said Annunciata, in her peevish voice. “I loathe traveling. And now I am being made to suffer for all I have done. He will die, and the rest of us—what will happen to us?” She shivered.
The Countess would take the cue, would enlarge on the precautions for safety, on the uselessness of fear, on the popularity of the Crown Prince. And Annunciata, for a time at least, would relax. In her new remorse she made frequent visits to the sickroom, passing, a long, thin figure, clad in black, through lines of bowing gentlemen, to stand by the bed and wring her hands. But the old King did not even know she was there.
The failure of her plan as to Nikky and Hedwig was known to the Countess the night before. Hedwig had sent for her and faced her in her boudoir, very white and calm.
“He refuses,” she said. “There is nothing more to do.”
“Refuses!”
“He has promised not to leave Otto.”
Olga Loschek had been incredulous, at first. It was not possible. Men in love did not do these things. It was not possible, that, after all, she had failed. When she realized it, she would have broken out in bitter protest, but Hedwig’s face warned her. “He is right, of course,” Hedwig had said. “You and I were wrong, Countess. There is nothing to do—or say.”
And the Countess had taken her defeat quietly, with burning eyes and a throat dry with excitement. “I am sorry, Highness,” she said from the doorway. “I had only hoped to save you from unhappiness. That is all. And, as you say, there is nothing to be done.” So she had gone away and faced the night, and the day which was to follow.
The plot was arranged, to the smallest detail. The King, living now only so long as it was decreed he should live; would, in mid-afternoon, commence to sink. The entire Court would be gathered in anterooms and salons near his apartments. In his rooms the Crown Prince would be kept, awaiting the summons to the throne-room, where, on the King’s death, the regency would be declared, and the Court would swear fealty to the new King, Otto the Ninth. By arrangement with the captain of the Palace guard, who was one of the Committee of Ten, the sentries before the Crown Prince’s door were to be of the revolutionary party. Mettlich would undoubtedly be with the King. Remained then to be reckoned with only the Prince’s personal servants, Miss Braithwaite, and Nikky Larisch.