“I shall take Stefanovics, and the Baroness had better send Madame Stefanovics as the lady-in-waiting. Then she can watch for a good opportunity for telling the Queen of the arrangements.”
Baroness von Hilfenstein, the Queen’s mistress of the robes, was a lady of vast experience and great resolution, but the news which Cyril had to communicate struck her as little less than appalling. She knew something already of the difficulties by which the Ministers would find themselves confronted under the new régime, and she foresaw that these would be intensified tenfold by the arrival of the Queen’s mother. The Baroness was herself a native of Weldart, and felt towards the Princess not merely the dislike entertained by the subjects of the smaller German States towards the Hercynian Imperial house, but also a lively disgust and contempt of a more personal nature, as for a woman who had taken all Europe into her confidence in her domestic squabbles, thus causing a fierce light, which it could ill bear, to beat upon the throne of Weldart. In spite of her dislike, however, she acquiesced heartily in Cyril’s proposal as to the expediency of greeting the Princess with such ceremonial observances as would be best calculated to disarm her hostility, and requested Madame Stefanovics, the wife of the Grand Chamberlain, to hold herself in readiness to proceed to the frontier that evening in company with her husband and Count Mortimer. In the meantime, she obtained the Queen’s assent to the arrangements, together with a letter to her mother, of which Cyril was to be the bearer, and armed with which he joined his travelling companions when the hour came for their departure. Their special train accomplished the journey to the frontier station of Witska in good time, and they reached their destination some two hours before the Princess’s train was due. Madame Stefanovics was made comfortable in the waiting-room for a short rest, with all the rugs belonging to the party, while her husband and Cyril walked up and down the platform in the twilight, keeping a bright look-out for the train and smoking busily to keep themselves warm.
So convinced were the two watchers that the Princess would outwit them if she could, that they did not dare to rest, lest she should become aware of their presence and contrive to slip past without giving them a chance of joining her party; and they felt it wise to keep a strict watch on the telegraph office, lest an attempt should be made to send her a message which might enable her to give orders that the train should pass through the station without stopping. But their efforts were crowned with success, and after all their anxious forebodings it was with a grim satisfaction that they beheld the astonishment of the Princess’s equerry, whom they confronted suddenly when he was preparing to stretch his legs by a hurried walk up and down while the train waited.
“What in the world are you doing here?” he asked, with difficulty composing his face into a decorously mournful expression. “We are incog., you know.”
“I know you would like to be,” said Cyril, “but you are not. Is her Highness awake yet?” glancing towards the Princess’s saloon.
“Sure to be. You had better come and be presented, I suppose. Don’t blame me if her Highness is not exactly pleased to see you.”
They went towards the royal saloon, but the Princess was ready for them. As they approached, the door was flung open, and she appeared on the step.
“Are you here to stop me, Count?” she demanded of Cyril. “If that is your intention, let me tell you that no power on earth will keep a mother from her daughter’s side at such a time of sorrow.”
“On the contrary, madame,” said Cyril, bowing, “I am here to greet your Royal Highness in the Queen’s name, and to hand you a letter from her Majesty,” and he presented it as he spoke.
“I think I scored there,” he said to himself, when the Princess had accepted the letter, and invited Madame Stefanovics into the saloon with her, leaving the chamberlain and Cyril to travel with the equerry, “and it’s always well to begin a war with a small victory; but if I had the honour of the personal acquaintance of an Anarchist or two, I fear some accident would have happened to this train between Lucernebourg and Witska.”