“Oh, you have noticed it, then? The likeness haunted me all evening, until I happened to see her refusing to say good night to Usk. He had offended her in some way, and she would only let him kiss her hand. Then I saw a likeness to my aunt Claudine, who married the King of Cantabria. It was not a happy marriage, you know, Cyril, and her portrait has a look of haughty resignation about it—a kind of ‘scorn of scorn.’ It is only in profile that there is a likeness, for none of our family have that little rosebud mouth or those surprised eyebrows, and Félicia is much prettier than my aunt ever was.”
“It’s a curious coincidence,” said Cyril, apparently dismissing the subject as he left the room, but his mind was still busy with it. “There are more coincidences in the affair than this one, if I am not mistaken,” he said to himself. “There was that story which came out at the inquest, that the girl’s father was murdered by mistake for the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim. Come, this narrows it down. Weldart and Hohenstaufen! King Paul of Cantabria married a Weldart, and his mother was a Hohenstaufen. The girl shows no traces of Albret or Hohenstaufen features—happily for herself—but the Weldart look is very distinct, only fined and sharpened as European types so often are after a generation or two in America. Clearly, then, the deceased ‘Mr Steinherz’ was a son of Paul and Claudine. There were three of them. Ramon is still alive, as I know only too well. Florian died young—in somewhat discreditable circumstances, but he is indubitably dead. There remains the lost Joseph, and here, I think, we must look for the link. That shipwreck presents great possibilities. It looks a little fishy that Prince Joseph and his fair musician—oh, and the maid too, of course—should have contrived to escape when every one else on board was drowned. Was there collusion somewhere? I don’t see how or why the thing was worked. But perhaps they had trans-shipped before the end came? That’s more likely, and makes the whole thing credible. Well, Usk knows whatever there is to be known, and if I am at all acquainted with him, will make a clean breast of the whole matter to me at the earliest opportunity. Caerleon and Nadia know nothing, nor does the girl herself. She is too self-conscious to be a good actress. But the hanger-on—does she know? or was that artless discovery another coincidence? She also has possibilities. She allowed herself to be silenced by Usk, which she would hardly have done if she had been the brainless innocent she was impersonating for the moment. I am inclined to think she does know, and is keeping the thing dark for some reason of her own. What that may be is not apparent for the moment, but I think it is distinctly to the advantage of all concerned that silence should still be kept. To-morrow I shall probably hear what Usk thinks about it.”
The confidence which Cyril anticipated he received the next morning, when Usk and he were walking into Aberkerran. Queen Ernestine had invited her sister-in-law and the two girls to assist at the unpacking of a box of Eastern embroideries she had brought with her from her Syrian home, and Usk seized the opportunity of obtaining a private talk with his uncle, who had some telegrams to send off, and asking his advice. He told his tale as briefly as possible, anxious to make an end of a disagreeable task, and there were several points on which Cyril was obliged to seek further information by means of questions. When it was all clear in his mind, he walked on for a short time in silence.
“Is there anything you think I ought to do?” asked Usk at last.
“Do? What can you do? You are absolutely debarred from enlightening Félicia, as I understand, or even from informing any one else of the circumstances. Obviously, then, the only thing that practically concerns you is the marriage at St Mary Windicotes. That’s your starting-point. I suppose you didn’t think of running down there to look up the register before you went to America?”
“No; I had no opportunity.”
“Do it when you are next in town, and note especially whether there is that slip of paper pasted on the inside of the cover, or not. It is just possible that Steinherz père made up the whole story on the strength of his likeness to the Archduke, though I allow that would not account for Félicia’s profile. That marriage once established, you are safe in England and America, at any rate, for people know better than to inquire too curiously into the pedigree of heiresses from the States. Of course it would not hold for a moment in Pannonia. There you would have to take your stand on the quasi-ceremony which Steinherz devised to spite his chaplain. If he had lived, it would almost certainly have been annulled on an appeal to Rome by his family, but as he was otherwise disposed of, no doubt they thought the less fuss made the better. As it is, you see, the sole evidence for it is the word of a dead man, for the other witnesses would know better than to testify to it unless the Emperor directed them to open their lips.”
“But would it in any circumstance be valid?”
“It is the kind of marriage that may be either valid or invalid at the will of the families concerned. If it was to the advantage of the Albrets to consider it an ordinary morganatic marriage, they would condone Steinherz’s defiance, and probably induce the Emperor to confer a title of nobility on Félicia. Or if there was something really important at stake—for instance, if you took it into your head to revive your father’s claim to Thracia, and made yourself troublesome in the Balkans, and they found they must buy you off—they might even be brought to recognise the marriage as fully valid and regular, and declare Félicia a Princess of Arragon, just as a bribe to you to stay at home. It has been done, notably about two hundred years ago, in a case intimately connected with English history, but naturally, the consideration would have to be a large one. And on the other hand, if they see no advantage to them in the matter, they can deny the Pannonian marriage, and refuse to recognise the English one, and continue to give out officially that Prince Joseph was drowned off the Australian coast, however forcibly it may be proved to them that he wasn’t.”
“I’m glad to hear you say this, for I still feel sometimes as if I was keeping Félicia out of something that was her due.”