He was firm, and his master knew by experience what his firmness meant. In spite of a long series of abject failures Duke Theodor still persisted in trying an occasional mental fall with the Samson who clasped the pillars of his royal house.
“Prince Ludwig is behaving cavalierly,” said the Duke, fishing about for an argument, as a man will prolong a hopeless game of chess. “I have reason to suppose my daughter resents it. He cannot complain, and we may.”
“It is not our policy to complain or to give the Beroldsteiners cause for dissatisfaction,” the Chancellor returned shortly, as declining to do more than suggest that his view was not to be traversed.
The royal temper began to give way under the minister’s somewhat contemptuous persistence. “It simply amounts to this then, Baron. That while Prince Ludwig chooses to prolong his rustication, my daughter is, like Andromeda, to be chained to the rock of Krell to await his pleasure.”
“That,” said Rollmar, “is one way of describing the position. But the simile scarcely holds good, since our Minotaur comes not to destroy but to enrich.”
“And therefore,” said the Duke, following out the idea with a weak mind’s love of trivialities, “it becomes necessary in our case to slay, not the Minotaur, but Perseus.”
Rollmar gave an assenting bow. “Since the Minotaur is assuredly the better match. Andromeda will be chained for her advantage, not against her destruction.”
“I do not like chains,” the Duke protested.
“They are,” said Rollmar, “the unseen insignia of royalty. I have done my best for many years to keep them from galling your Highness. But if you persist in feeling for them, I can do no more. Perhaps it is as well; I may have done too much already.”
There was in this, as the Duke knew well, a covert threat of retirement; and, much as he would have liked to take at his word the determined and exacting old minister, who constituted the most galling of all his fetters, yet for the safety of his kingdom and, what touched him nearer, his own personal security, he dared not. Cold-blooded, cruel, relentless, false when expediency called for deceit, overbearing and contemptuous to the master whom he led by the nose, Chancellor Rollmar was yet honest enough of purpose in his patriotism and his schemes for the aggrandisement of the little kingdom he ruled with so strong a hand.