“Take care,” Minna said in a warning undertone, “Udo is watching us.”
Ruperta laughed. They passed through the room without noticing von Bertheim by more than a return of the bow with which he and his companion saluted them. “Oh, that noble Udo, that preux chevalier,” was Ruperta’s mocking comment. “Let us turn. Now keep your eyes open for the red fox. Ah, he is gone.”
“At least he is invisible,” Minna said, on her guard.
As they passed von Bertheim and the General the Princess’s handkerchief fell. Ludovic saw and sprang forward to restore it. She stopped for an instant and took it from him. Several people had come into the room and saw the action; none of them could have noticed in it more than a common incident of courtesy. They could not dream that the receiving hand thrilled that which gave with a quick pressure, that the murmured words were far more than those of thanks. Only one pair of sharp, avid, ravening eyes, suddenly visible from their ambush, saw what they desired, yet hated to see, saw proof of what had been conjecture, saw a near and certain revenge. It was enough. The jealous, vindictive glance just lingered for a moment on the pleasant sight of death in that face which raised itself in happy confidence; then the gallant Udo von Rollmar turned with a smile of satisfaction and hurried to his father.
“It is as well to be certain,” observed the Chancellor with his cynical smile, as he nodded his acceptance of the information. “You may leave the affair to me, Udo.”
“Can I be of any use?”
“You? No. My men are ready. It is butcher’s work.”
Ten minutes later a written message, signed R., was mysteriously put into the Lieutenant’s hand bidding him wait in the little garden pavilion which stood in the shrubbery a short distance from the place. It was called the Pavilion of Mercury, from a figure by which it was surmounted. He had freed himself from the General’s somewhat boring prolixity and was debating with himself whether he should stay or go, when the message was brought him by a little page of honour. In delight that he had waited and so not missed it, he made his way out into the palace grounds, taking heed that his movements were not too curiously observed. The words which Ruperta had spoken when he restored her handkerchief had been enough to allay the doubts with which the scene he had witnessed with Udo Rollmar had filled his mind. Indeed it was almost inconceivable that a girl of the Princess’s character could be captivated by a man like the Chancellor’s son. And now the full explanation of that equivocal situation would doubtless be given him.
Von Ompertz had received his orders, the most distasteful of his life, and stood with his two satellites waiting grimly for his man. He had on the first shock of Rollmar’s order, met it by a refusal. It was indeed, as the Chancellor had designated it, butcher’s work, and he was a soldier with the strain of his innate nobility ever ready to assume, sometimes to his detriment, the function of a conscience. He loved fighting for its own sake and was ready enough to slay his fellow man in hot blood; but in cold? To become a midnight assassin? Pfui! It went against that same make-shift conscience of his. But the astute old reader of men’s characters and motives had made short work of his objection, although he judged it prudent to condescend to a certain amount of persuasive argument. It was a State service, this deed which looked so black; far more important in its way than the killing of a score of the Duke’s enemies in battle. The honour of an illustrious house, of a royal name, was deeply concerned; only to a man like the Captain, of absolute trustworthiness, of honourable principles above the run of his class, could the secret vindication of the royal honour be entrusted. And then there was the obvious ugly alternative should the quixotic refusal be persisted in. The rope round Captain von Ompertz’s neck was only loosened, it was still there, but this service would make him quit of it altogether.
So the free-lance, seeing this was no situation for trifling, was fain to buy his life by consenting to what he tried to persuade himself was a bounden if disagreeable duty to the State whose hospitality he had enjoyed and to its Minister whose pay he was taking, and who, after all, was a better judge of the act’s justification than he himself could be.