“Oh yes, he came about his report, I believe,” she answered carelessly. “And that reminds me—— The report did not please me exactly; but remembering one’s own fatigue, one must be merciful to others. Where is it, Anna? I was standing by the window at the time; perhaps it has fallen into the corner. Thank you. May I trouble you to be my messenger, monsieur? Will you give yourself the pain of leaving this in Count Mortimer’s office, and telling him that it will do well enough?” She held it out to him, and her eyes met his with absolute calmness as she placed it in his reluctant hand. “And now, as to your own business?”
“It is unimportant, madame. If I had been aware of your Majesty’s fatigue, I would not have intruded upon you,” and with this wide departure from the truth M. Drakovics covered his retreat from the room. On the whole, he thought, it seemed probable that Count Mortimer could not be aware of the Queen’s feelings towards him; but he could not resist the temptation to burst in upon him suddenly in his office, and try to startle him by the delivery of her message. But his strategy was again in vain.
“Sent to say it will do, has she?” remarked Cyril. “Wish it had come a little earlier, then. I am half-way through another report. Well, it might have been worse. Awfully obliged, Drakovics.”
And he bowed the discomfited Premier out of the office, with a full perception of the humour of the situation. Unlike some men, Cyril could feel a certain amount of pleasurable interest in his own misfortunes, as well as in those of other people, and his present difficulties would have given him the keenest artistic enjoyment, if it had not been for the danger of Ernestine’s betraying unintentionally the state of affairs. Nothing more could be done for the present, however, and he put aside the perplexities of his love-affair with his official clothes, and prepared to spend a pleasant evening at the British Legation, where he was the life of the party. Sir Egerton Stratford and he were old acquaintances, since the former had been sent on a minor diplomatic mission to Pavelsburg during the year Cyril had spent there as attaché long ago, and in private they enjoyed one another’s society, although officially it was imperative to maintain a certain degree of reserve in their intercourse, in view of the somewhat equivocal position occupied by Cyril, as an Englishman holding high office in a foreign country. He was not, however, to be allowed to go to rest that night quite forgetful of his present circumstances. As he was leaving the drawing-room of the Legation, Lady Stratford, a small, shy woman with large grey eyes, whom the greater number of her acquaintances despised as a nonentity, while a select few adored her as the most sympathetic and enthusiastic person they knew, presented him with a written notice of some kind.
“Have you seen one of these, Lord Cyril? I don’t know whether you will be able to come to any of the meetings?”
“I’m afraid they are not exactly in my line,” returned Cyril, wondering with great amusement why his hostess thought him likely to be attracted by an invitation to a series of evangelistic meetings shortly to be held in Bellaviste by a certain Count Wratisloff, a Scythian religious reformer who had been banished from his own country some years before. “I see that some of them are to be held here.”
“Only the ladies’ meetings,” said Lady Stratford, with her ready blush. “The fact is, Sir Egerton met the lady who is to conduct them when he was at Pavelsburg. She goes about a good deal with Count and Countess Wratisloff, and I fancied you might know her—Princess Soudaroff.”
“Princess Soudaroff! do I not know her, indeed? Why, she is a relation of mine, Lady Stratford—at least she is my brother’s godmother-in-law, and if that is not relationship, what is? I shall certainly contrive to pay my respects to her when she is here, even if I cannot find time to attend any of her meetings. But all the same,” he added to himself, as he descended the stairs, “I shall keep it dark about my little affair with Ernestine. The Princess is just the person to urge me to throw up everything and marry her at once, and though I should not do it, one doesn’t want a lot of fuss.”
But Cyril’s plans were doomed to disaster. It was not until three days after Princess Soudaroff’s arrival in Bellaviste that he was able to find time to call at her hotel, and as soon as his name was announced by the waiter at the sitting-room door, the white-haired lady who was sitting writing in the window rose to meet him, uttering a little cry of joy, which showed him that his visit had been expected.
“My dear Lord Cyril, I am so glad to meet you again! I was just writing a note to ask you to come and see me. You know that I spent Christmas at Llandiarmid with the Caerleons? How well and happy your dear brother looks!”