“Pardon me, sir, but it is a little unkind to wish to keep all the enjoyment to yourself. The practical joke which her Royal Highness has just carried out with your Majesty’s assistance would make the fortune of a farce.”
The King’s dignity was touched. He had an uneasy feeling, which would never have oppressed the Princess of Dardania, that the suave, cynical man before him was amused rather than thunder-struck by his great coup, and he grasped eagerly at the first chance that offered itself for terminating the interview. “This wrangling, Count, is unseemly in the presence of her Majesty,” he said reprovingly, with a glance at his mother, who was looking from one to the other in bewildered misery.
“Nothing, sir, could be more contrary to my wishes than that my presence should cast a shadow on her Majesty’s pleasure in this joyful occasion. With your permission I will retire to England as soon as the formalities attendant upon my resignation are completed.”
“No, Count. There are certain charges”—the King looked sharply at Cyril to see whether he blenched, but in vain—“to be inquired into first.”
“As your Majesty pleases. I can only hope that the result may be as satisfactory to my accusers as it is bound to be to myself.” It was his turn to look at the King, who moved uneasily.
“Cyril,” cried the Queen, rousing herself from her lethargy, as he prepared to retire, “you will not leave me in this way? Cyril!”
“You forget, madame, that we are not alone,” Cyril heard the King say, laying a hand on his mother’s shoulder as she tried to rise, and with her despairing face before his eyes, the defeated Premier left the room. Once outside the door, the realisation of all that this meant came upon him like a flood. One moment he gasped for breath, and his hands gripped his coat as though to tear it open: then his self-control returned to him, and he stepped out from under the portière to pass through the rooms filled with the gaudy, glittering crowd, that knew him to be discomfited and disgraced. If they had expected him to show the consciousness of his failure in his face, they were disappointed, for he appeared amongst them absolutely unmoved, although a smile lingered on his lips for a moment as he noticed the rapidity with which men and women alike hastened out of his way, leaving him a clear path, for fear of his attempting to speak to any of them, and thus branding them with the taint of having been an intimate of the fallen Minister. He spoke to no one, but before he had crossed the first room a tall awkward youth, with his honest face ablaze with indignation, had deliberately stepped forward and placed himself at his side, glorifying the retreat by the splendour of his uniform and the magnificence of the decorations with which his breast was covered. It was the Crown Prince of Hercynia, whose incurable kindness of heart made him the despair of his father, and who was reported to run no small risk of being passed over in the succession in favour of his younger brother, Prince Friedrich Karl. He placed his arm through Cyril’s, and began to talk stammeringly and incoherently, not because he had anything to say, but obviously in order to set his protégé at his ease. In spite of his unavoidable amusement, Cyril could not help being touched, but at the door he freed himself resolutely from the Prince’s hold.
“I am unutterably grateful for your Imperial Highness’s condescension, but I must refuse to bring you into trouble with your father.”
For one moment the Prince looked startled, then he took Cyril’s arm again. “You have been doing our work,” he said, “and you shall not be thrown aside because the task has proved too much for you.”
In the corridor they came face to face with Baron de la Mothe von Elterthal, who was hurrying towards them, drawn by the flying report which had reached him of the extraordinary conduct of the Crown Prince. A glance at the young man’s face showed him that no remonstrance would serve his turn, and he begged therefore that he might be allowed a few moments’ conversation with Count Mortimer on political matters of the utmost importance. The Prince hesitated, half-suspecting the ruse, then saw a way out of the difficulty.