“You will not walk on the terrace to-night, madame?” she said uneasily. “It is cold, and the damp is rising from the river. I thought I would venture to speak when I heard Miss Logan telling your dressers.”
“I am going out,” said Félicia. “I can’t stay indoors to-night.”
“It is something more,” said the Baroness, coming closer, and laying her hands on Félicia’s shoulders. “Forgive me, madame, but I see it in your face. You will not gratify your slanderers by giving them such a handle against you? Ah, dear child, I loved your father; bear with me, and listen to me now. Don’t take this step, whatever it may be. You are excited—agitated——”
“Feel of my hand, Baroness. There’s no excitement there—not much! I’m real fond of you, but I can’t have you delay me this way. The step I am going to take is due to myself, and nobody will blame me when they know the reason. If you’ll sort these things here, I’ll be grateful, for I may send for them soon, and I’m sorry that you’ll just have to stay here till morning.”
She withdrew herself from the clinging hands as she spoke, and before the Baroness knew what she was going to do, she had passed under the curtain Maimie was holding, and locked the door of the larger boudoir. This portion of the palace was now deserted for the night, and the Baroness could not make up her mind to attract the attention of any of the sentries in the garden to her position. Perhaps she had misjudged Félicia; she might only be intending to walk on the terrace, as she had said, but the Baroness’s heart misgave her as she remembered that the Bluebird was lying at the mouth of the river, with her fires banked, in case the King and Queen should be able to make a start early on the morrow. She would have been more anxious still if she had known that the yacht’s steam-launch was waiting off the palace itself for orders, and that those orders were conveyed to it by Félicia in person. But when the astonishing news arrived in the morning that the Queen was missing, and that her yacht had steamed out to sea in the night, it was the Baroness, released after a weary vigil, who undertook to face the King in the first fury of his wrath. He would send his gunboat to pursue the Bluebird, he would telegraph to every port that she was to be detained, he would enlist the help of every government in Europe to restore his truant wife, and he would—he would—words failed to express the punishment that should be meted out to every one concerned in the affair. But the Baroness held her ground, and fought Félicia’s battle with a courage which was absolutely regardless of the King’s frantic displeasure. To prevent a scandal, and leave the way open for the two to be brought together again, was her only aim, and she had her reward, when she left the King’s presence at last, in the brief announcement which was to be added to the daily Court Circular:—
“Her Majesty the Queen, attended by Miss Logan, left Bellaviste last night on board the royal yacht Bluebird for a short cruise. His Majesty the King, who had intended to accompany her Majesty, is detained some time longer by the course of public affairs.”
“For real genuine slave-driving commend me to a pretty woman who knows her own value—as all pretty women ought to,” added Mr Hicks gallantly, repenting, apparently, of his opening complaint.
“Who is the lady?” asked Usk.
“No less a person than her Majesty Queen Félicia, sir. She is lying off Paranati in the Bluebird, and has had the mate come over the mountains on horseback at the risk of his life, with a message for me that she has no use for matrimony just now, and I may as well fix up a separation.”
“What, already?” cried Usk, with unintentional irony.