“We must get the lad out somewhere for some air,” he observed. “It is not good to keep him shut up like this.” He turned to the Crown Prince. “In a day or so,” he said, “we shall all go to the summer palace. You would like that, eh?”
“Will my grandfather be able to go?”
The Chancellor sighed. “Yes,” he said, “I—he will go to the country also. He has loved it very dearly.”
He went, shortly after three o’clock. And, because he was restless and uneasy, he made a round of the Palace, and of the guards. Before he returned to his vigil outside the King’s bedroom, he stood for a moment by a window and looked out. Evidently rumors of the King’s condition had crept out, in spite of their caution. The Place, kept free of murmurs by the police, was filling slowly with people; people who took up positions on benches, under the trees, and even sitting on the curb of the street. An orderly and silent crowd it seemed, of the better class. Here and there he saw police agents in plain clothes, impassive but watchful, on the lookout for the first cry of treason.
An hour or two, or three—three at the most and the fate of the Palace would lie in the hands of that crowd. He could but lead the boy to the balcony, and await the result.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE PIRATE’S DEN
Miss Braithwaite was asleep on the couch in her sitting-room, deeply asleep, so that when Prince Ferdinand William Otto changed the cold cloth on her head, she did not even move. The Countess Loschek had brought her some medicine.
“It cured her very quickly,” said the Crown Prince, shuffling the cards with clumsy fingers. He and Nikky were playing a game in which matches represented money. The Crown Prince had won nearly all of them and was quite pink with excitement. “It’s my deal, it? When she goes to sleep like that, she nearly always wakens up much better. She’s very sound asleep.”
Nikky played absently, and lost the game. The Crown Prince triumphantly scooped up the rest of the matches. “We’ve had rather a nice day,” he observed, “even if we didn’t go out. Shall we divide them again, and start all over?”