The Queen’s eyes opened again, but only to reject the soup with a look of disgust. This time, however, Cyril was equal to his duty.
“You will take it from me?” he said, and succeeded in administering several spoonfuls before Fräulein von Staubach snatched the jug from his hands, and in a peremptory whisper ordered him away.
“She is coming back to her senses,” she said, and as he rose, Cyril saw that the Queen’s eyes were following him with a look in which a shade of fear and perplexity was blended with the loving confidence which had revealed to him so much. He felt as though he had committed sacrilege—as though a rude hand had raised a veil and shown him something that he had no right to see, and he went back into the outer room like a man in a dream, and stood looking into the fire.
“Good heavens!” he said to himself helplessly, “good heavens!” Then after a pause. “It only needed this. What a complication! Of all the cursed luck which this wretched business has brought us, this is the very worst. Who could have dreamt that she would take it into her head to care for me? I shall have to cut Thracia, of course. I declare, if it wasn’t for leaving her in danger, I would make myself scarce to-night. What in the world is to be done?”
Here he met the gaze of Nathan, who was regarding him with great interest from the other side of the hearth, and awoke from his meditations to be thankful that the youth knew no English. In the perturbation of his mind it was a relief to remember that there was a practical matter still to be settled.
“What do you intend to do, Nathan?” he asked. “You don’t think of going back to your people to-night, I suppose? A shake-down on the settle here would be more comfortable than the snow.”
“Oh, I shall get back all right,” was the confident reply. “I know the way, and the wind is going down. But the kind gentleman won’t forget the money?”
No, Cyril had not forgotten; but it was necessary to check the impulse which moved him to give the youth a gold piece instead of the five piastres which were owing to him. Assuming the reluctant air of the thrifty peasant, Cyril counted out the sum, and added three piastres and a few smaller coins, which he pushed across to Nathan. “Those are for yourself,” he said. “You see that I am not ungrateful.”
The Jew looked up with something like a twinkle in his eye. “And when the kind gentleman comes to his own again, he will not forget poor Nathan?” he said, in the cringing whine of his race.
“I think you must be making some mistake about me, Nathan,” said Cyril; but Nathan only laughed incredulously as he took his cap and stick, asked for the lantern, and departed. Presently the old servant passed through the room, and informing Cyril that his wife had taken some more soup, and was now sleeping quietly, she also went home. Cyril was left alone, and his thoughts, as he lay down on his improvised couch, were scarcely more reassuring than they had been two nights ago in the forest. When at last he fell asleep, he was tormented by a dream which recurred several times, so that all night he seemed to be carrying the Queen in his arms up a steep snow mountain, which, as often as he reached the top, changed into a great throne of ice, on which sat Ernestine far above him, gazing down with that look of love and trust which he had surprised in her unconscious eyes, but unapproachable. At last she bent towards him, and laid her hand upon his shoulder, and the touch at least was real; but, alas! it was Fräulein von Staubach who was waking him in broad daylight.