“His Excellency loves to jest,” remarked Prince Mirkovics solemnly to Mansfield. “Perhaps,” he added, turning again to Cyril, “you are not even aware that his Majesty intends to visit Ludwigsbad? I believe he was to arrive to-day.”
“What, King Michael?” cried Cyril. “No, I had not heard it. Why, Mr Mansfield, how is this? It’s your business to keep me posted up in the names of the expected arrivals. Oh, is that it?” as Mansfield began a stammering defence; “you thought it might call up unpleasant memories, and therefore you left me to meet him unawares? I am not quite so sensitive as that, you know, and you needn’t be so very anxious to spare my feelings.”
“The Princess of Dardania is naturally coming as well,” continued Prince Mirkovics.
“Surely not? Why, her husband has only been dead for ten or twelve months. She is far too clever to outrage propriety by coming to such a place as this so soon.”
“She does not dare to stay away, Count. The quarrel with her eldest son has forced her to quit Dardania, and the coolness which came to a head before that between herself and her elder daughter closes Mœsia to her. Thracia is her only hope, for if King Michael should break his promise to marry the Princess Ludmilla, she would be discredited on all sides.”
Cyril’s eyes flashed ominously. “Then her Nemesis has overtaken her already?” he said.
“It has, Count, at least so far as regards the marriage project which threw you out of office. Her Royal Highness is a clever woman, but she has so much at stake in this affair that she has failed to show her customary tact. She has kept too tight a hand over young Michael, made the chain by which she has bound him to her daughter too evident, and if he could muster sufficient courage, he would break it. He slipped away from Thracia without her knowledge, well aware that she would oppose his coming here, and she, her daughter, and her household, are following him promptly. But everything will be done with propriety, my dear Count. She has borrowed the Grand-Duke Eugen’s villa, and will receive none but relations.”
“Still, the proceeding sounds a little undignified,” said Cyril drily.
“So much the better, Count, provided it fails. That woman is the curse of Thracia. Since you left us she has filled the Ministry, the army, and the civil service with Scythian sympathisers—for Drakovics, in his second childhood, is nothing but her tool—with the result that we are now bankrupt in all but name.”
“Bankrupt? and I left the treasury full!”