There was a dignified touch of self-abnegating patriotism in the old minister’s speech which carried conviction to its hearer, for all that he affected to smile at the declaration.
“You see, Count,” he went on, “I have, as is my custom, well weighed the consequences of my act; I doubt whether you have done the same respecting your own.”
“I am not in the habit,” Irromar replied, with an outburst of scornful, overbearing pride, “of troubling myself about the consequences of any act of mine which may commend itself to my fancy. I have hitherto found myself able to shape such consequences myself.”
“Ah, that is where you are wrong, or at least short-sighted,” Rollmar returned, with provoking, almost patronising, coolness. “That system may succeed for a while, but it surely means disaster in the end. You are within measurable distance—literally measurable distance—of that now.”
“Indeed?”
“In very truth,” Rollmar maintained steadfastly. “I am an old man, weak and alone, completely at your mercy.” As he spoke, he rose and faced Irromar with the dignified power which only years passed in ruling men can give. “I think I have earned the reputation of knowing every move, every possibility of the game called state-craft, and I know the difference between a brutum fulmen, an empty threat, and the absolutely certain result of a well-planned and organized action. Before I left home, I set in motion the machinery for the alternative accomplishment of the purpose which brought me here. My reason for coming to you thus quietly and alone was to avoid making the episode public, to obviate an unhappy scandal.”
He drew himself up and fastened his fierce, undimmed eyes on the Count, who stood fumingly playing his waiting game with lessening prospect of success.
“One word more, Count, and only one, since I tire of stretching my patience to the length of your equivocation. Standing here before you, and recognizing your personal power over me, I tell you, even though they may be the last words my tongue may ever utter, that unless Princess Ruperta is produced and set free within the hour, this castle of yours shall, by this time to-morrow be a ruin, and yourself hanged before its walls.”
For a moment it seemed as though the contingency Rollmar had suggested might become an accomplished fact, and that provocative old man have the breath strangled out of him by those muscular hands. But from such a fate perhaps his host’s complex character saved him. After a few moments of ugly hesitation, the Count started away and took a turn across the room. Bold, unprincipled dare-devil that he was, he had yet a strong idea of the importance of his own welfare. In the midst of his discomfiture and consequent anger, he felt that he had to deal with no ordinary man, or even statesman. The threat which stirred up his rage might be a trick, but the chances were heavily against it. Chancellor Rollmar was, he knew, a man of action as well as of intrigue. The position was humiliating, and he cursed the chance that had brought upon him this fall for his pride, this humbling in his hitherto unbroken success in defying all who crossed his will. But the prize, although for the moment within his reach, was not for his grasping; he realized that, and that nothing now was left to him but to cover his yielding and minimise his defeat in the best manner his wit could suggest. And his shrewdness told him that it would be sheer waste of time and trouble were he to attempt to deceive his keen old adversary in the manner of accepting his defeat. To retire fighting would hardly serve to satisfy his own self-complacency. He had better make a clean surrender. So, when he turned again to his guest it was with a face almost laughingly genial.
“I scarcely think the impregnability of my house will be put to a test over this business, Excellency,” he said with, to all appearance, unruffled frankness. “But to one of your eminent shrewdness and perspicacity I need hardly explain the motives of my action and my caution in admitting it.”