“I hope Usk will be able to see his way to it,” said Cyril. “Ernestine and I are quite foolish over this child Helene. Imagine my tearing across Europe just to get her what she wants!”
“I can’t understand even now how the Grand-Duke came to give in. One has always heard that his views on unequal marriages were so very strict.”
“I’m going to give you a tip,” said Cyril. “You mustn’t allow that it is unequal, on any account. Play the grand seigneur anglais for all you’re worth when you meet him. Be impassive, bored, contemptuously tolerant of all you see, and let him know that you have much better at home.”
“Anything else?”
“It’s perfectly true. None of the Grand-Duke’s palaces can hold a candle to this house, and there’s no need to mention that you can’t afford to live in it. And as for Llandiarmid, though Félicia was pleased to turn up her pretty nose at it, it would make him miserably discontented with all his country seats, even if he saw it as it is. To German ears your rent-roll sounds magnificent, and the family jewels are historic. I’m thankful you never parted with them—but they are heirlooms, aren’t they? so it was not any virtue on your part. If you have to come to Molzau—for the wedding—make Nadia wear the emeralds, and have the pearls mounted afresh for Helene. That will smooth your path wonderfully.”
“If you exalt me much higher, I shall begin to think that it is Usk who is making the mésalliance.”
“Oh, the rest of the Schwarzwald-Molzau family will soon undeceive you in that case. It’s the Grand-Duke’s bitterest pill that he has imbued his children so thoroughly with his views that they will all look askance at him now. The youngest son, Prince Franz, who married the daughter of Félicia’s uncle, Don Florian, is the only one from whom he can expect any sympathy. Princess Resi is recht demokratisch, I understand.”
“Nice to be received upon sufferance into a family where only the Radicals will tolerate you!”
“You must make allowance for the susceptibilities of young people who have all married as they were told, and done excellently for themselves. I don’t know whether they married for rank, but they have certainly married where rank is. The Grand-Duke has always warned them against the romantic taint which crops out in the family with such curious persistency, and their feelings will naturally be hurt when it turns out that the taint has reappeared and vanquished him in the youngest and most timid of them all.”
“And this taint is merely a disposition to marry for love, I suppose?”