“I have never loved her, and I don’t now.”
“You have never asked her to marry you?”
“Never.”
“Then that is all I want to know.” She sprang up, and lifting the perforated cover from the mangal, or brazier, which stood close to the divan, threw the letter upon the glowing charcoal. “I won’t read any more. I am not interested in what she says against you. If you had really belonged to her, I would have given you up, though it would have broken my heart; but I can trust you, Cyril, and I do. You may have injured her, as she says—I know I am shut out of your political schemes,” she smiled sadly, “and I don’t ask how or why it was—but it was not in that way.”
“My dearest, I wish I was more worthy of your trust.”
“Trust me, my beloved; I shall always trust you.”
The subject of the unread letter was not again touched upon between them, but Ernestine did not forget it. She had a conviction that Colonel Czartoriski would linger in the neighbourhood in order to watch the effect of his embassy, and inform his mistress of the result. That very evening she caught a glimpse of him, half-concealed among the trees by the wayside, watching her as she rode. This was merely what she had expected, and she had prepared a disappointment for him. Turning and beckoning with smiling imperiousness to Cyril, who was close behind, she reined in her horse that he might ride beside her. As they rode, she engaged him in a low-toned confidential conversation, quite contrary to her wont in public, stretching out a hand the while to play with his horse’s mane. A second glance showed her presently that Colonel Czartoriski had seen enough, and was retreating down the road, with defeat in all his aspect, and she shook her riding-whip at his unconscious form.
“Go and tell your mistress exactly what you saw!” she cried passionately, and laughed at the sudden dawn of comprehension in Cyril’s face.
Baffled in his quest, Colonel Czartoriski left Brutli, acting upon instructions from the Princess of Dardania, and a few days of intense quiet and happiness succeeded his departure. The unfeigned joy felt by all the attendants of the betrothed pair in their reconciliation was reflected in the faces of the deaconesses and their Syrian peasants, and smiling looks and gifts of flowers or fruit greeted both Cyril and Ernestine everywhere. Even the melancholy Paschics went about with a beaming countenance and a flower in his buttonhole, and Mr Hicks’s characteristic pessimism displayed itself only in a remark aside to Mansfield, to the effect that this was the calm before the storm. What he wanted to know was, what would all those European kings think about it?
It happened that the Chevalier Goldberg was at the Schloss at Vindobona, closeted with the Emperor on a matter of high financial importance, when the Queen’s letter to her Pannonian kinsfolk arrived. The Chevalier had received the news of the engagement by telegram some days before, and therefore his presence at the palace on this particular morning may or may not have been accidental.