“Well, I guess it isn’t my fault you are not,” was the swift answer, given in an undertone, for Félicia’s words had been distinctly audible.
“That is so. And we can’t alter things now, any way.”
“No; you’ll just have to make the best of them.”
That was all, but Félicia remained pensive for the rest of the day, and there were those at hand who watched her every look and treasured up any incautious word. One of these was King Michael’s aide-de-camp, Captain Andreivics, to whom his master had recently intimated that he might make himself useful by marrying Maimie, so that, while still about the Court, she might be removed from her position of paramount influence with Félicia. Somewhat against his will, so far as his personal feelings were concerned, but with a keen sense of the direction in which his material interests pointed, the aide-de-camp had done his best to obey, only to find himself smartly refused by Maimie, and to become, as he shrewdly suspected, a never-failing subject of amusement to his lady-love and the Queen. To-day he saw his opportunity for a neat little revenge on both of them, for even at this early date the married life of the royal couple was by no means a path of roses. The King’s marriage had been extremely popular in Thracia, on account of the reputed wealth of the bride, which was expected to descend in a golden shower on all classes of the community. But it had proved rather to resemble the grants made to deserving objects by certain philanthropic bodies, which require as a condition of their reception that at least an equal amount shall be raised by the locality benefited. Moreover, the thrifty Thracians, already disturbed in their minds by the cost of the festivities incident upon the state entry of the King and Queen into their capital, found that their new sovereign had no intention of serving the country at the cost of her own wishes. Addresses presented by impassioned patriots implored her to adopt the national costume, which it was quickly known she had pronounced hideous, and to encourage local manufactures by wearing no materials but those made in Thracia, which she flatly refused to do. King Michael had never shown himself particularly amenable to the wishes of his people in the past, but he had a lively sense of the value of popularity, and felt that it would be an excellent thing for Félicia to make a few little sacrifices in the interests of the nation and the dynasty. Unfortunately, however, Félicia did not take this view of things. The King had already become aware that to be her husband meant chiefly that he was responsible for providing her with a “good time” generally, and that any attempt to coerce her would be either ignored or laughed aside. He had sufficient self-control to behave as if his forced acquiescence was due to a natural willingness to indulge his bride as far as possible, but he was keenly on the look-out for some means of inflicting an exemplary defeat upon her. It was unfortunate for him that in the first fall he tried with her, he himself was the defeated party. Félicia’s yacht, the Bluebird, in which they had spent the honeymoon, was about to convey them on a series of visits to various foreign Courts. King Michael wished to arm the vessel and change her status to that of a warship, thus doubling the numerical strength of the Thracian navy at one stroke; but Félicia not only refused her assent to the change, but persisted in continuing to sail the ship under the Stars and Stripes, and retaining her American crew. King Michael saw Maimie’s hand in this, and lacking the wisdom which would have led him to wait for the moment when the crew would begin to grumble at serving so far from home, argued the matter with Félicia on every possible occasion. His only hope of success lay in winning her over to his side, for her marriage-contract secured to her the absolute control of the vessel, but he could not bring himself to let the subject drop, and begin again when she had forgiven his persistence, and things were thus ripe for a quarrel between the two.
As for Félicia, she had obtained her ambition, and it wholly failed to satisfy her. Considered as the capital of a Balkan state, Bellaviste was wonderfully advanced, but to her it seemed dull, behind the times, and above all, provincial. The Thracians, who had so sturdily resisted Queen Ernestine’s efforts to Europeanise them, were not more ready to succumb to the fascinations of Queen Félicia, even when these were backed by the prestige of her wealth, and she was beginning to see that her intention of gathering a gay society around her was not likely to become a reality. People who were accustomed to Lutetia and Vindobona might pay a flying visit to this far corner of Europe if a series of special festivities was in progress, but they would not make a long stay, and most emphatically they would never regard Bellaviste seriously as a spot which must be visited once a year. Thus disillusioned, Félicia found herself suddenly face to face with the fact that by her own action, or inaction, long ago she had thrown away the chance of reigning as the supreme arbitress of taste and fashion in the city which to her, as to all good Americans, was the actual centre of the world. Instead of setting the fashions, all she could now do was to be allowed, by the special favour of the great couturiers she patronised, to follow them at secondhand, and her taste could only be imposed upon the small and often recalcitrant circle of Thracian officialdom, instead of upon an admiring world.
Left to herself, Félicia would doubtless have followed Maimie’s prudent advice, and, with the common-sense on which she prided herself, have determined to make the best of her position, but she had gained too many enemies to be allowed to do this. Captain Andreivics found an ally in one of the many ladies to whom King Michael’s unguarded attentions in past years had given hopes of sharing his throne, hopes doomed to be blighted by a sudden and somewhat tardy recollection on his part of the duty he owed to his house. Félicia’s remark to Maimie, her obvious depression during the rest of the day, offered abundant material for disturbing the mind of a husband who was already notoriously prone to jealousy, and almost without knowing it, the conspirators added a touch here, and deepened a shadow there, until the least that could be imagined was that Félicia had played off Prince Timoleon Malasorte and himself against one another until her very marriage-day, and had only chosen him at last because she distrusted his rival’s prospects of establishing himself on the Neustrian throne. Whispers followed as to a certain mysterious cabinet in the inner boudoir which was sacred to her Majesty and Miss Logan. This cabinet had never been seen open, but ladies on duty in the outer rooms had heard it closed and locked, after the Queen and her favourite had sat for a long time rustling papers and talking in low tones. What more likely than that the cabinet contained love-letters, which would prove to King Michael that he had been cruelly duped by his bride, and in which she took a stolen pleasure even now?
There was this amount of inherent probability in the suggestions which Captain Andreivics ventured, somewhat gingerly at first, to throw out, that King Michael was very well aware Félicia had played off Usk and himself against one another in the manner described, so that she might quite conceivably have treated a third unfortunate in the same way without their knowledge. He had viewed her treatment of Usk with a fine indifference, but he was the last man to submit meekly to similar usage himself. Moreover, if there was any foundation for the aide-de-camp’s hints, Maimie also had deceived him in the most barefaced way, which demanded condign punishment. A strong man would have taxed both women openly with the alleged deception, but King Michael preferred to work on different lines. Armed with various bunches of keys, he made his way that evening by a private passage from his rooms to Félicia’s. The door opening into the passage from the inner boudoir was locked, but he opened it with a master-key, after listening to make sure that Félicia and Maimie were not talking inside. The room was empty, and switching on the electric light, he began to try the lock of the cabinet—a fanciful thing of old French workmanship, but well made and in excellent repair—with one key after another. To his disgust, there was not one that would open it, though he found two that seemed to fit. Striking a match, and examining the lock closely by its light, he saw where the difficulty lay, and that it was easily overcome. The blade of his knife, inserted where the doors met, forced back the bolt at once, and the secrets of the cabinet lay open before him. Moreover, the cabinet was packed with them; the mass of evidence was enormous. But as he took out one thing after another at random, he grew more and more perplexed. There were ball-programmes, bouquet-holders, bonbonnières, cotillon gifts and favours, a few valentines or Christmas cards of a specially flattering character, some invitations to important or exclusive gatherings. It was an interesting social museum, but it was not what he wanted. He pulled out the drawer at the top. Photographs!—he clutched them eagerly. But they were all of Félicia herself, in every possible variety of dress and attitude, and each marked with the date and place of its taking. More angry than ever, he drew out the deep drawer at the bottom. It was very full, and the rustling of paper rewarded him as he plunged his hand into it. But it was all newspaper—a collection of cuttings from all sorts and conditions of American journals, forming Félicia’s social biography, from her school “graduation” and coming-out ball to her marriage, over which the journalistic mind appeared to have run riot. There were interviews with her of various dates, accompanied by unrecognisable portraits of herself and of “J. Bertram Steinherz, father of Miss Steinherz,” and of “the late Mrs Constance L. Steinherz,” and interior and exterior views of the family abode. Some of the accounts had a small piece of dress-material carefully pinned to them, evidently that of the gown worn at the ball or theatre-party in question, and all were neatly arranged and docketed.
King Michael stood before the rifled cabinet in a towering rage. He was in no mood for the consolation, of which the examination of his wife’s dearest treasures might have assured him, that she loved no one but herself; all he felt was that he was in an absurd and ungraceful position. To put everything back as he had found it was almost an impossibility, even if he could get the cabinet-door to lock again. If he could not, Félicia and that American woman would guess the truth at once. Only one person would tamper with the cabinet so clumsily if he ventured to do it all. He was beginning to lay the papers in the drawer as smoothly as he could, trusting that Félicia might not remember the exact order in which she had left them, when he was horrified by the sound of voices in the next room.
“I just wish that Paris store would hurry up with those albums, Maime,” said Félicia, and her voice was coming closer. “When one has them make things to one’s own design, they’re so awfully long about it.”
“I’d have them send one at a time, just as they’re finished,” Maimie answered. “Then we can start on your graduation right away.”