“By no means. You forget that under the delicious system of dictatorship by which Thracia is governed, Drakovics, for all practical purposes, is the Cabinet. If all the rest of us resigned to-day, he would fill our places to-morrow with creatures of his own, and go on merrily.”
“But not in defiance of the opinion of the country?”
“He has the Legislature behind him, and the great mass of the people—so long as he is in power. We have the nobles and the mountain clans—possibly the army as well—who would be useful in a civil war; but Europe would never let us get to that.”
“Don’t talk of it!” said Ernestine, with a shudder. “Well, then, if the Cabinet can do nothing, the responsibility falls on me. If M. Drakovics ventures to ask my assent to Bishop Philaret’s nomination, I shall refuse it.”
“You must do nothing of the kind. Why, the political heavens would fall!”
“Let them. M. Drakovics shall find that he has gone too far. I have stood a great deal for the sake of peace; but when he tries to force on me the man who laid that plot for Michael’s conversion, and who issued knowingly the lying proclamation which might have cost us all our lives—for I am convinced, and so is Paula von Hilfenstein, that he knew the truth the whole time—he must learn that it is beyond endurance.”
“My dear Ernestine, I don’t think you foresee the gravity of the situation that would be created. Drakovics would resign.”
“That is exactly what I want. I shall make you Premier instead.”
“I am deeply grateful for your kind thought of me; but I should expect to have a voice in the matter, and it would be a negative one.”
“What!” her eyes gleamed with indignation; “you refuse to help me? But you must help me—you shall. I have always deferred to your wishes hitherto, now I insist on your yielding to mine.”