“I cannot help believing what I saw with my own eyes.”
“Thank you. That is an interesting piece of information for my future use. I think you can scarcely have intended to enlighten me on such a delicate subject, did you? At any rate, whatever happens after this, you will have the pleasure of knowing that you helped it on. But I don’t fancy that I shall be imprudent enough to take advantage of your kind disclosure.”
Absolutely confused, and quite unable to decide whether Cyril had or had not been aware hitherto of the Queen’s feelings towards him, M. Drakovics preferred not to answer, and made his way into the council-chamber in silence, while Cyril reflected upon his triumph with a satisfaction that was not wholly complete.
“Not a moral victory, by any means,” he said to himself—“very much the reverse. Ernestine would be grievously wounded if she heard the details of the fight; and as for Princess Soudaroff——! But it was touch and go. Bluff was the only game, and either Drakovics had to go under or I. I think he has had his lesson; but it will be awkward if the Powers refuse to let the thing drop.”
That some of the Powers, at any rate, were suspicious as to the motives with which M. Drakovics had entered upon his inquiry, Cyril discovered some days later, when the Queen’s father paid a short visit to Bellaviste. His Serene Highness Luitpold, Prince of Weldart, was a gentleman whose proclivities were euphemistically termed by his friends “artistic,” and who cultivated, for the sake of consistency, an aureole of hair and a small pointed beard, which gave him the appearance of a Vandyke portrait gone mad. He had just returned from a tour in the East, where he had enjoyed himself extremely, although one or two escapades of a somewhat juvenile character had given more pleasure to himself than to his suite or his temporary hosts; and it appeared that a hint had reached him from some quarter which induced him to break his journey home by a visit to his daughter. He remained at Bellaviste only two or three days, finding the city intolerably dull, and the Palace even worse. With Ernestine he was on a footing of distant acquaintanceship, coloured by mutual dislike, for his treatment of her mother rankled in her mind, and he perceived the fact and resented it. Court etiquette was happily successful in preventing any public exposure of this family skeleton, however; and the inhabitants of Bellaviste had no excuse for accusing their unpopular Queen of unfilial conduct towards her father, whom, as the natural enemy of their bête noire, the Princess of Weldart, they chose to regard with affectionate approval. The visit was so wholly unexpected that Cyril felt convinced it had been made, not by the Prince of Weldart’s own wish, but in obedience to the dictates of a higher power; and he was not surprised when the royal guest took advantage of a ride, on which Cyril attended him, to ask one or two pertinent questions at a moment when they happened to have out-distanced the rest of the party.
“Do you think that your Premier’s health is to be depended upon?” the Prince asked suddenly, apropos of nothing.
“He has not seemed quite his usual self of late, sir,” returned Cyril cautiously.
“That is precisely what I mean. I do not mind telling you that he has done one or two strange things. Only a short time ago, for instance, he addressed a confidential circular of a most extraordinary nature to the Powers, dealing with matters which are not in the least likely to occur, and with which he would have no concern if they did.”
“It is possible, sir, that M. Drakovics has acted so long as a kind of deputy Providence in Thracia that he wishes to play the same rôle with regard to Europe.”
“But that only shows that his mind must be affected—or at any rate that he has lost his sense of the fitness of things. I will not conceal from you, my dear Count, that the circular to which I allude has produced a most deplorable impression at the Hercynian and Pannonian Courts.”