Wright touched his hat, and fell back with an inarticulate grunt, making no attempt to profit by the permission accorded him. At Schloss Herzensruh he had fallen in with a fellow-exile in the person of King Johann’s coachman, who was also an Englishman, and he had informed him, in the course of a long and generally lugubrious exchange of confidences, that “a straighter rider than ’is Majesty, nor a pleasanter master, I don’t wish to see—and it do take something like a ’orse to carry ’is Majesty,” he added with professional pride; “but Lord Cyril—there! ’e’s beyond me.” Cyril smiled to himself over the groom’s look of bewilderment as he rode on, and reflected that it would have been a thousand pities to spoil the effect of their return by care for the appearance of the horses. As it was, when the dusty and travel-stained riders and their weary beasts entered the gates of Bellaviste, they created a sensation. A keen curiosity had been rife ever since Cyril’s departure, to account for which the wildest theories had been started, and his return promised fresh interest to the townsfolk. They gathered about him in crowds, and inquired anxiously the object of his journey, and whether all was well. To the first question he professed himself unable to give an answer; but on the subject of the second he was able to reassure his questioners, although the most audacious hints as to the King’s possible marriage could gain no confirmation from his lips until he met Mr Hicks.
“Well, Lord Cyril, guess his Majesty’s about got over his disappointment, anyway?” remarked the journalist confidentially.
Cyril responded in two words of the American’s own language, “You bet!” and rode on to the palace. Dismounting hastily, he forbade the servants to announce him, and hurrying up the steps, staggered into Caerleon’s study, and collapsed upon the sofa.
“What! back already?” said Caerleon, looking up from his papers.
Cyril sat up. “Already!” he remarked, tragically; “I have ridden night and day for the sake of a fad of yours, and this is all I get for it!”
“My dear fellow, what made you do such a thing?” cried Caerleon, rising and coming towards him. “I never thought of your rushing to Mœsia and back like this. We shall have you ill again. Let me get you some brandy.”
“You had better call one of the servants, and let me give the order,” said Cyril, with crushing irony. “You are a temperance man. Well, at any rate I hope you will be pleased to know that I have made arrangements for you to meet the Princess.”
“Is it really necessary for me to meet her?” asked Caerleon, anxiously. “I have been hoping you would manage to nip the scheme in the bud without that.”
“When you forbade me to mention the matter!” cried Cyril, with natural indignation. “I had plenty of opportunities for telling the King your story, but you had hinted that I should misrepresent it, so I said nothing. Of course I did the wrong thing. Well, I have done all I can, and I am dead beat. Just let me alone, that’s all I want.”
He turned over on the sofa and went to sleep, for it was perfectly true that he was very tired after the three days’ ride, while Caerleon stood looking at him in much apprehension and self-reproach. To cover his brother with a rug and send for the Court physician to see him were obviously the only things for the King to do; but when the doctor averred that there was nothing amiss with the patient but fatigue, and prescribed merely rest and mental relaxation, he could not accept the comfort thus conveyed. When Cyril had been roused with much difficulty from the sofa, and persuaded to go to bed, Caerleon went round to the stables to speak to Wright, whom he found engaged in superintending the grooming of one of the horses, which he conceived had been neglected during his absence.