“Why, what would you have me do?” asked the Queen listlessly.
“I would have you work on a definite plan. What is the use of your alternate sweetness and petulance if it all leads to nothing?”
“How can it lead to anything? I am pleasant to them if things are happening as I like, and I suppose I am petulant if I feel cross. One cannot act on a plan when one is angry.”
“That’s the very thing. You should never exhibit anger or pleasure unless to serve a purpose. You must learn to conceal your feelings.”
“I have never been able to do that hitherto. But what is the purpose which this concealment is to serve?”
“The estrangement of Count Mortimer from M. Drakovics. It is a very simple matter, and I really feel quite impatient when I see you wasting without any result quarrels and reconciliations which might effect so much.”
“One might think that I was in love with either or both of these gentlemen,” said the Queen lightly. Her mother frowned.
“Remember your position, Ernestine, pray. I should be afraid to engage you in any diplomatic intrigue worthy of the name; you are so absurdly susceptible to outside influence, and so unable to conceal its effect on you. Is it possible that you don’t see who is to blame for the way in which these men continue to act together?”
“No, indeed—unless you mean the men themselves?”
“I mean you. You have persisted in treating the two Ministers as though they were a double-faced automaton, working merely as a whole, when the slightest glimmering of common-sense should have led you to see that your only hope lay in considering them separately.”