“I had hoped that I should be always at hand to help you whenever you needed help, madame.”
“If you call me that again you will break my heart. Don’t you see that I want you close to me? I want to be able to see you and speak to you without fear of making people talk. Every day I count the hours until we meet, and then it is only for a moment’s discussion of business. I am looking for you all day. My ladies cannot imagine what makes me so restless. Baroness von Hilfenstein says that my nerves have suffered from the strain of our adventures, and threatens to send for a specialist from Vienna. How can I go on like this? You cannot really mean that it is to last for twelve years?”
“If you cannot bear it, Ernestine, it is easy to end it. You have only to hint to Drakovics that I have had the presumption to fall in love with you, and he will get rid of me without any further trouble to you”—“Oh no, no!” she moaned—“But if you prefer half a loaf to no bread, I am here, and ready to help you in any way that I can.”
“Will you promise that whatever happens you will not forsake me? But even then you are doing everything for me. I want to be able to help you—to take care of you—to feel that I am doing something for you.”
“You are doing something very hard for me, dearest, in consenting to wait. And after all,” this was contrary to Cyril’s better judgment, “something may happen to shorten the time.”
“Madame,” said Fräulein von Staubach’s voice at the door, as a gleam of hope shone in Ernestine’s sad eyes, “his Excellency the Premier is crossing the gardens, and will be here in a moment,” and Cyril kissed the Queen on the forehead, and hurried away.
CHAPTER XVIII.
FRIENDLY INTERVENTION.
When M. Drakovics entered the Queen’s anteroom he found Cyril there, engaged in comparing notes with the two ladies as to the success of the day’s spectacle.
“You have seen her Majesty, Count?” asked the Premier, as Princess Anna went to announce his arrival to the Queen.
“Yes; the ordeal is over for me. My report had not the good fortune to please the Queen, however. I shall have to write another; and as I am to dine at the British Legation to-night, I ought to get it done early. You have my most sincere wishes for better luck.”