“After a trial?” asked the Queen, alarmed. “That must not be. Your Excellency will see that after his long employment here he must be in a position to reveal—to reveal many things of importance if he is hard pressed.”
“Your Majesty would prefer that he should be sent back to Hercynia with the warning that the law will be set in motion against him if he tells anything he knows? Dismissed and disgraced he must be, for the sake of the moral effect on Europe.”
“Of course—I suppose so. And about this letter—do you wish me to write it now?”
“If your Majesty pleases. It might be well if Count Mortimer would be good enough to act as secretary, in order to avoid any further treachery.”
“Your advice is excellent, monsieur. You will lend us the assistance of your pen on this occasion, Count?”
“My pen, like myself, is always at your Majesty’s service,” Cyril answered, grimly enough, all unmoved by the dazzling smile with which she turned to him. He noted her heaving breast and trembling hands, and knew that her unaccustomed graciousness was merely the outcome of her desperate eagerness to shield her mother from being identified as a sharer in the secretary’s treachery. She read his thoughts, and cast a piteous glance at him as he sat down and dipped a pen in the ink. “I have conquered even Drakovics, but you will not allow yourself to be won over!” it seemed to say; but Cyril was not to be touched. His eyes met hers unmoved when he looked towards her, and she gave a frightened little sigh as she turned to M. Drakovics to consult him as to the opening words of the letter. Nothing could well have been more unlike the fateful missive which might have plunged Europe into war than the epistle which left Cyril’s hands at last. There was no reproach, no defiance in it from beginning to end. The Queen was made merely to insist on the sorrow and astonishment with which she had heard that the Metropolitan claimed the support of the Emperor for his extraordinary conduct. It was altogether beyond the bounds of possibility to suppose that anything said by Prince Soudaroff could bear the meaning placed upon it by the Archbishop’s distorted brain, for no one knew better than the Queen that the Emperor would be the last person to wish to disturb a settlement approved by Europe, and confirmed by the most solemn engagements. (Cyril and M. Drakovics could not resist stealing a glance at one another at this point, and the Queen laughed drearily.) The letter concluded by remarking that the Metropolitan’s mind was without doubt temporarily unhinged, and assuring the Emperor that a sufficient period of rest and seclusion would be granted him to ensure that he should no longer entertain, or at any rate promulgate, such delusions as those under the influence of which he was now labouring.
“We have come off better than I expected,” said M. Drakovics to Cyril, as they retired in triumph with the letter; “but I foresee that we shall be obliged to get rid of the old lady, or she will get rid of us.”
“You may well say so,” returned Cyril. “In fact, if she had had a little more tact, she would have succeeded in doing it already.”
In the morning-room, at the moment, the Queen was locking her escritoire and fastening the key to her watch-chain without saying a word. When she had finished, she turned to her mother.
“One must be careful after what one has heard to-day,” she said. “It is evident that there is some one in the household who cannot be trusted. I never thought it necessary to put my keys under my pillow before; but this one, at any rate, shall never be left in my jewel-case at night again.”