The King smiled. “Perhaps. Yes, yes, it is madness, yet none the less inevitable.”
His friend laughed. “I think I can understand,” he said a little bitterly. “For only one thing does a sane man fling away a kingdom.”
Ludovic laid his hand affectionately on the other’s shoulder. “Your impatience is justified, my dear friend,” he said. “I know my interests are yours. But there is another thing, besides love, for which a man may risk his crown, and more, his life; that is honour.”
“Honour? Yes. But surely——”
“This is a complicated affair of mine, my dear Anton; and one which this business of my uncle’s death and Ferdinand’s usurpation have made tenfold more difficult. The very act which calls me home post-haste at the same time makes it impossible to avoid a few hours’ delay.”
De Gayl could say no more; so they returned together, the King seeming to abandon the intention with which he had set out.
CHAPTER XVI
A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT
THE rest of the day was occupied by the new King in taking anxious thought and counsel. His original purpose of declaring his identity to the Chancellor was now, he felt, a very doubtful expedient. A very black cloud was resting over him, and the crafty old Minister was obviously not the one to look with favour upon men whose positions were insecure. The alliance had been planned and mooted by him for purely political reasons. With the shadow of doubt now lying over those reasons, the expediency of the marriage practically disappeared, at least for the moment. If only Ludovic had declared himself sooner! As it was, a day’s delay had been fatal. And here came in the other complicating circumstance which had all along made him withhold the disclosure, the animus and prejudice against the unseen Prince Ludwig which had taken such hold of Ruperta’s mind.
After the outbursts of detestation he had not dared to declare himself. Loving her as he did, the risk was too great, for she was still something of an enigma to him; and although one word would have cleared up the situation and smoothed the course of their love, yet the revulsion might have been too great, might,—who knows?—have turned love to hate. At least it would have killed the romance; in which had lain the very joy, the exquisite zest of their love. Ruperta might very naturally have looked upon the incognito as a trick of the Chancellor’s and as such would surely have resented it, and then besides, was romance nothing to Ludovic himself? Was not his wooing her as a simple lieutenant of cavalry, his gaining her love as such, going through perils, facing death for her sake, those hazardous yet sweet adventures crammed into those few delicious days, ten thousand times more heart-stirring than the dull, cut-and-dried mockery of a courtship regulated by etiquette and, its very duration settled by precedent, proceeding tediously to its inevitable end? When he thought, as he did a thousand times a day, of that first kiss, so thrilling in its very unexpectedness, he told himself that that moment had given him a joy which had he come as Prince he never, never could have known. Then as to the adventures, the first at the fortune-teller’s, so piquant, the others so perilous yet so delicious, he was young and could enjoy them to the full, never troubling himself as to the risks he ran in the attainment of a joy which he had scarcely dared imagine might ever be his, the finding of love where he had dreaded to meet with coldness and distaste. But that love had seemed so delicately poised that he feared to try the touch which might shatter it. It was strong enough in opposition and adversity; what might it not turn to when the fraud of his trial was disclosed?
When the scheme of the marriage had been agreed to by the King and Ministers and then, as a natural, though hardly political, necessity, had been mooted to him, he had hated the idea almost as cordially as ever did his destined bride. Expediency counts for little at five-and-twenty, at least in a free and healthy character. When the blood is warm the heart must govern the head, or love will have nothing to say to either. The very fact that these two young people hated the idea of one another was in reality an all-sufficient reason to fall desperately in love with each other if once the air could be cleared of the mist of expediency and arrangement. Could that ever be? It hung over their hearts like a foul miasma, choking the very life of love. Their aversion to the match was pretty equal; their attitude differed with their sex. Ludwig, with a man’s steady common-sense, realized the wisdom of the policy and, with bitterness in his heart, bowed to the inevitable which his rank prescribed. Only he vowed he would put off that inevitable as long as possible. The little liberty he enjoyed was dear to him—and he was only twenty-five. Where was the hurry? He was answered that it lay in certain contingencies, death; lusty youth laughs at that; an interloper; the Princess Ruperta might make another match; he fervently hoped she would. That was a reason for, rather than against, delay, he told himself, though he was too wise to utter his thoughts. A Minister who, in a royal alliance, should take love into consideration, would be unworthy of the very strap of his portfolio.