“What can Michael do when he comes in conflict with the unbending laws of etiquette? No, Ernestine, listen; I have it all nicely mapped out. We shall both be at Helene’s wedding, at any rate; we won’t let them do me out of that. Then we will pick up your aunt Amalie and run down to Nice again, and see Félicia safely into the hands of her father’s family. You will return to Molzau for the wedding, and I shall go on to Thracia. Michael and Mirkovics have give me carte blanche as to reorganising the government offices, so as to prevent corruption in future, and you will join me at Bellaviste. Then we shall be ready to welcome Michael and Félicia, and as soon as they have settled down we will take our leave and be off to Sitt Zeynab, and spend a quiet old age dispensing justice to the Arabs under our own palm-trees.”
“But I would rather not wait for that until after the wedding. I should like to go back at once, Cyril—at once, this very day.”
“I’m afraid we can’t annihilate time and space quite to that extent. But I suppose this means that the Emperor has been saying unpleasant things? I have had Helene here, drowned in tears, and offering to give up Usk if his marrying her would really bring me into danger. What does the man mean by trying to frighten two women? Why not say what he has to say to me?”
“He told me distinctly that you were in danger as long as you remained in Europe and persisted in your schemes. Poor little Lenchen must have heard the same.”
“Probably. If we were punished as severely for our evil deeds as for our good ones, we should come off pretty badly, shouldn’t we, Ernestine? I’m sure the best thing I ever did in my life was when I threw myself on your mercy and induced you to marry me, and I’m tolerably certain the next best was bringing Usk and Helene together, and yet it’s just those two things these people can’t forgive me.”
“But must you stay, Cyril? Do let us go.”
“Before we have seen the young people made happy? No, no; we’ll see the thing through after having so much to do with it.”
“Well, then, as soon as Michael’s wedding is over, you can meet me at Trieste, and we will leave for Beyrout at once. Why should you run into danger for the sake of Prince Malasorte?”
“It’s not that. I failed my friends when they trusted me, and now that they have thrown in their lot with Malasorte, I won’t spoil their plans a second time, as I should do if I left Europe before he brings off his coup d’état. They trust him, and I don’t, but if I can help them a bit by getting public suspicion concentrated on me instead of him, I will. And that’s my last word, Ernestine.”
With a couple of weddings approaching, there was no time to lose, and the Schwarzwald-Molzau family were most anxious to get the less important of the two over, and be able to devote themselves to the preparations for the gorgeous state ceremonial which would mark the marriage of King Michael. Hence Usk made a hasty business journey to England very shortly after the Emperor’s visit, and when he returned it was in company with his parents, who were duly installed by the Grand-Duke, not with the best possible grace, in a wing of the great Schloss at Molzau. The transaction with the Aberkerran and Western Hills Railway Company, to which Cyril had alluded, proved, when carried out on the lines he suggested, highly beneficial to Lord Caerleon’s exchequer; and he was able to leave on the minds of the Molzau people an impression of sober magnificence which checked any misgivings as to the match their little Princess was making. Quite unintentionally, Lord Caerleon also produced a distinct impression on the Grand-Duke, who revenged himself afterwards by alluding to him as “the stone image,” but at the time actually asked Cyril whether his brother would like to be received with the honours due to an ex-sovereign, purely as a compliment, of course, and without prejudice to King Michael’s rights. Cyril declined the offer on Caerleon’s behalf, but he derived a good deal of amusement as well as relief from the fact that his brother could overawe the irascible Grand-Duke to such an extent that the occasion was not marked by a single burst of temper. The wedding was very quiet. Princess Theresia induced her mother to be present, and that amiable lady, who was always at her daughter’s beck and call, shed the lustre of her historic jewels on the ceremony, but Europe as a whole turned its head away and refused to be aware of what was taking place. When the wedding was over, the bride and bridegroom, with what Usk regarded as a preposterous retinue of servants, and Helene as the lowest number with which it would be respectable to travel, betook themselves to the Lebanon, where they were to meet Philippa and her husband, who had been prevented from coming to the wedding by the authoritative claims of a son and heir only a month old. The Grand-Duchess, who had maintained for the past three months a defiant attitude towards circumstances irresistibly suggestive of a ruffled hen defending its brood, bewailed the loss of Helene with floods of tears to Lady Caerleon, Queen Ernestine, Princess Florian, and Princess Resi by turns, and then settled down to her usual duty of acting as a buffer between her husband and his surroundings. Lord and Lady Caerleon returned to England, and Cyril and his wife journeyed back to Nice, in company with Princess Amalie of Weldart, the Queen’s aunt, who disapproved highly of Helene’s marriage, but had not been able to bring herself to stay away from the wedding.