“And I,” chimed in Madame Ziska, “can lend you a few ducats to help her out.”
The ever-ready tears filled Gavin’s eyes.
“Why should I have such friends? I think it must be my mother’s blessing that brings them. But, oh, me! I do not know where in Paris my mother can now be found. The last letter that reached me was in the summer. She may have changed her quarters since then.”
“Never mind,” cried St. Arnaud encouragingly. “It is not likely that she did not take steps to have her whereabouts known, and the King’s police can find her, anyhow.”
That very night St. Arnaud wrote a packet of letters, to be dispatched by the next post to France. Only after they were gone did he tell Gavin that he had directed his friends in Paris, not only to find Lady Hamilton, but to supply her with everything needful for her comfort in making the long journey. More than that, he went next day to Prince Kaunitz, and laying before him the facts in the case, got a specific promise from him that the Empress Queen would receive Lady Hamilton on her arrival. And he and Gavin, in whatever company they found themselves, took pains to announce the coming arrival of Lady Hamilton. The presence of Sir Gavin made a very pretty complication, and conjecture ran riot in Vienna society as to what he would say and do when the catastrophe came. Sir Gavin discounted it all by saying and doing nothing whatever. Bets were freely made as to the date when Sir Gavin would be driven to flight. The Chancellor, Kaunitz, hearing it talked of one evening in the Empress Queen’s antechamber, took a pinch of snuff, and coolly poising it between his thumb and forefinger, remarked:
“Sir Gavin Hamilton will remain in Vienna as long as he is not wanted. The day we appear to wish him to stay he will take post for Berlin or London or the devil. Yesterday I achieved the greatest diplomatic stroke of my career. Sir Gavin came to see me at the Chancellery, and inquired whether he could have permission to remain in Vienna, if he so desired, beyond the time stipulated in his passport. I was on the alert at once. I knew, whatever he supposed my wishes were, that would he not do. Therefore, I answered him in such a manner that he did not and cannot find out whether his presence here is pleasing or displeasing to her Imperial Majesty’s government. That is what I call a diplomatic triumph.”
And Kaunitz dramatically waved his jewelled hand and lace-trimmed handkerchief in the air.
“But the wife he repudiates is coming,” suggested a pert maid of honour. Kaunitz shook his head.
“No such trifle as that, my dear lady, will move Sir Gavin Hamilton. Englishmen are obstinate, but Sir Gavin Hamilton has an obstinacy as tall and as wide and as deep as the cathedral of St. Stephen.”
On a snowy day in February, about the time that Lady Hamilton was expected, St. Arnaud sat alone in his apartment. He was hard at work over some details of his regiment; for the remnants of it had been got together, and with the new recruits it could make a tolerable showing in numbers. Below he could hear the Kalenga children romping—Madame Ziska was away at the palace giving the dancing lesson to the little archdukes and archduchesses, and Kalenga, the most devoted of fathers, allowed his children much more indulgence than their mother. They grew so noisy presently that when St. Arnaud heard the grinding of wheels before the door, he said to himself: