"Yes, my Prince, and no!..." Straz had long ago got rid of his cold, yet a certain thickness characterized his consonants. He shrugged his great shoulders and smiled, showing his dazzling double curves of solid human ivory. "I come from Rheims, where His Imperial Majesty is making history.... I am not charged with any message from him!"
The boy's face fell. He said, with a brave effort to conquer his disappointment: "I am impatient, Monsieur, for news of another victory. It is so long since the engagement of Saarbrück, and that was only a little one. You are an officer in the Army of Roumania, you have told me. You are aware, even better than I, that military plans take time to develop .. and that Papa has every confidence in the generalship of M. de Bazaine.... If I were five or six years older, I should be admitted to the Councils of the Imperial État Major.... I should understand the reasons for these changes which puzzle me.... But one thing I should like to ask..." He flushed and glanced round nervously. "They do not believe in Paris or London that we are being ... beaten?... I beg of you to answer me candidly!"
Straz drew himself up dramatically, expanding his huge chest, and curling his parted mustache. His fierce black eyes, staring from their great curved arches, glittered like balls of polished jet....
"They do not, my Prince! They wait for the Star of the Bonapartes to rise resplendent from a sea of gore shed from Prussian veins.... They wait, as the world waits, for the Empire to emerge more glorious than ever from this conflict, which will restore to her forever her lost Provinces of the Rhine. It may be that the Coronation of Napoleon IV. will be solemnized in the Cathedral of Cologne.... Aha, my Prince, have I won a smile at last?"
He looked, despite the frock-coat, more than ever like some ancient warrior of Assyria, marching in a carved and painted procession along the walls of some unearthed palace of Nineveh or Babylon. And so admirable an actor was he that the sick heart of the boy now warmed at his simulated fire, and gladdened at his deceptive words of hope.
"I had pictured my Imperial Prince," he went on, "in brighter and less gloomy surroundings, with sympathetic and delightful companions to alleviate his exile from home."
He had touched the wrong chord. The slender, well-made figure was drawn up proudly. The delicate brows frowned, the lips quivered as the boy said:
"Monsieur, it is not 'exile' when an officer is ordered on Active Service.... And I am with the French Army, whose uniform I wear. For the moment the Emperor, my commanding officer, has ordered me to remain here.... I did wrong to grumble—I shall do so no more!"
Straz grinned and bowed to cover his momentary confusion. Why had he used the indigestible word? He touched his buttonhole bouquet and said with a treacly inflection:
"There are no violets—it is not the proper season.... Does Monseigneur remember when the purple blooms reached him regularly at intervals, one timid scrap of paper hiding among the slender stems? ... And would he, did he know how the sender languished for news of him—entrust me with one penciled message of kindness that might restore the rose to a fading cheek?"