“Why, what good could I do, Lenchen? My husband has tried, your father has tried, Mr Hicks has tried, and she won’t listen to any of them.”
“Yes, I know. But you see, Aunt Ernestine, I don’t think they have any of them taken her the right way. Papa tells her that she will create a European scandal, and disgrace all her relations, and she doesn’t mind that a bit. The dear Count reminds her that people will say horrid things about her, and that she won’t be received at Vindobona, and she rather glories in it. Mr Hicks tells her that her money is invested in Thracia, and she may lose a good deal of it, and she says she doesn’t care. When they told her even that the Thracian Legislature would dissolve the marriage if she wouldn’t come back, she was startled at first, but she only said she would chance it. Oh, I know exactly what they would each say. I make mamma tell me all about it. But no one has gone to her yet simply as a woman. There must be some way of reaching her and working on her feelings, you know, and you are Michael’s mother, you love them both—why don’t you do it?”
“My little Lenchen, I am afraid I have only thought how wicked it was of her to leave Michael, and it wouldn’t soften her much to hear that.”
“Ah, but you will think of her side of it too?” asked Helene earnestly. “I think she must be terribly miserable all this time. Just imagine if I had run away from Usk, how I should feel!”
“I fear there isn’t much likeness between you and Félicia, Lenchen,” said the Queen, kissing her. “But I have always intended to see what I could do if all other means failed, and I will try now instead of waiting any longer. And I will try to look at the matter from her point of view.”
Thus it was that when Cyril made his next journey across the mountains to Paranati, his wife accompanied him. She was slightly nervous as to her reception on board the Bluebird, for her conscience told her that Helene’s words were true. In her horror at Félicia’s unheard-of behaviour, she had forgotten to inquire whether Félicia might seem to herself to have sufficient reason for it. What Cyril thought of her sudden determination to go with him she did not know, for he refused to discuss the situation with her, lest Félicia should suspect her of having been primed by him. Maimie, who had come on shore to meet them, looked at her keenly, but was equally reticent. Of her Queen Ernestine was a little afraid, not knowing whether to regard her as Félicia’s evil genius or as a moderating influence, and she did not like to question her as to Félicia’s feelings. Félicia herself looked thinner and a little worn, and the Queen wondered whether it was ennui that was telling upon her, or a sense of her equivocal position, as impressed upon her by Cyril and the Grand-Duke. She rebuked herself immediately for lack of charity, and wondered why she could not simply believe that Félicia really cared for Michael, and was regretting the step she had taken. But this she found impossible, which was a bad beginning to her mission.
“Well,” said Félicia suddenly, when they were alone together, “why are you come? I guess it wasn’t just for your health. Did Mr Hicks send you?”
“No; certainly not,” answered Queen Ernestine, taken aback by the tone and accent of the question as much as by its drift, “but I should have been very glad to come sooner if I had known you would like to see me.”
Félicia laughed scornfully. “Mr Hicks thought he would get you here and have you talk me over, but I told him if he said a single word to you I wouldn’t see you when you came. But why did you come, any way?”
“It was not Mr Hicks who sent me. It was my niece Helene, Usk’s wife.”