“But surely I might expect to have been informed beforehand——?”
“Not at all. You are not a good actor, Prince, and it would have been evident that you were playing a part. Now you have spoken with the most complete good faith, and Drakovics will ask no more.”
“But suppose that he will not resign, even now?”
“Then I shall be compelled to advise her Majesty to end the deadlock by herself nominating either Bishop Socrates or your brother to the vacant see, on the ground of the Premier’s long delay. The crisis must come then.”
“You are playing a desperate game, Count.”
“Quite so, Prince. We are in a desperate position.”
The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. Late in the afternoon the Vienna doctor left Cyril’s house to return home, just after the police on guard had been relieved. His assistant, so they gathered from the doctor’s words to Paschics at the door, had gone on first to the station in order to make arrangements for the journey. A second reassuring bulletin as to the condition of the patient appeared in the one evening paper of which Bellaviste boasted, and it became generally known that the retiring Ministers would resign their portfolios on the following day.
The ceremony at the Palace in the morning was a brief and formal one. The Queen, who looked pale and grave, uttered the stereotyped words of regret and farewell that the occasion demanded, and when the public audience was over, requested Cyril to remain behind in order to explain to her the system on which he had been accustomed to manage the household details which came into his province. Going to his office to fetch his books, he returned to find her in the room in which she had held her first interview with him as Regent, with Anna Mirkovics on guard in the anteroom. Ernestine was walking up and down impatiently when he entered, but turning as he closed the door, ran to meet him.
“Put those down!” she said imperiously, taking the books from his hand, and throwing them on the table. “I am not in the least interested in them; I want you. Oh, Cyril, you must not let yourself be kept out of office long. I could not endure it. How I have lived through these four days without once seeing you I cannot tell.”
“But I warned you beforehand,” said Cyril.