A prince of lovers

by Sir William Magnay

“You speak,” said Ludovic to the Count, “as though the transference of the Princess’s hand was inevitable. Putting aside the question of submission to Rollmar’s orders, is it certain that Ferdinand will succeed in keeping the position he has assumed?”

“Possibly not,” Irromar answered carelessly. “Although it is always easier to hold than to oust. Ferdinand seems to have the favour of the people, and the mob counts; even Rollmar acknowledges that. Anyhow, I should advise Ludwig to show himself without delay, if, indeed, he is not already a corpse or a hermit.”

When supper was over, the Princess and Minna were conducted to their sleeping apartments. About these the keynote of barbaric luxury, which characterised the rest of the house, was entirely absent; the furniture and arrangement of these rooms suggested a woman’s supervision, and yet save a maidservant, they had seen none in the house. However, the travellers were too tired to speculate much on the matter, and were soon asleep.

The two men sat with their host for an hour or more, for his talk was so surprisingly full of information and a certain charm of vigorous expression, that Ludovic, in spite of his anxiety, was held half-fascinated by the man, and time went by unheeded.

“If the curiosity of a stranger may be pardoned,” Ludovic said, as the Count’s contradictory nature increasingly piqued him, “I should tell you that mine is still unsatisfied as to the reason a man like yourself has for living in this strange, wild place. A love of liberty I can understand, but I should have thought this a freedom more suited to an animal than to a man of keen intellect.”

A curious look passed over the Count’s face, a kind of grim justification of himself, it seemed, against Ludovic’s criticism. For, during that instant, the brute, rather than the man, looked out of the untrustworthy eyes.

“You are criticising,” he replied, with something of a feline suavity, “a life, a state of existence which you have presumably never tried. Because most men who dwell far from cities and civilization are clods and almost animals, is that any reason why a thinking, intelligent human being need succumb to such surroundings as these, and become a brainless, mechanical dullard, an observer of nothing higher than vegetation and the weather? I flatter myself I give the lie to that suggestion. I love contrast, and the life I have chosen gives it to me in all its strength, all its stimulating charm. And for the rest, we have all, deny it as we may, something of the animal life in us, the lion, let us say to be complimentary to ourselves, or the eagle. To that side of our nature the rocks, the woods and the wild solitude of the mountains are bound to appeal.”

“And the stronger the man,” Ompertz observed, “the stronger the animal passion for a wild life.”

It was impossible to tell from the Count’s face whether he resented the pushing of his argument to the personal limit, but Ludovic, watching him curiously, had an idea that the black beard hid an ugly expression just then.

Irromar laughed. “I am content, at any rate, to be judged as I am,” he returned with a sort of careless defiance. “I can keep my wits sharpened here in the mountains, as well as my claws and teeth.”