In answer to Cyril’s telegram, Mr Hicks had cabled that there was nothing to prevent the trustees from supporting Félicia’s claim, if she did not consider her father’s strongly expressed wish as binding on her, and he added such details as to the papers and other objects left in his charge by Mr Steinherz as enabled Cyril to draw up a statement at once. The relationship between his wife and the royal family of Arragon gave him the opportunity of proceeding privately, much to his satisfaction, for expecting the whole affair to end in smoke, he did not care for it to be canvassed in the European press. Félicia would have preferred publicity, for she had been looking forward confidently to becoming the heroine of the sensation-mongering American papers, and felt that she was being defrauded of the interviews and portraits that were her due. She yielded, however, to the strong pressure brought to bear on her by Maimie, who pointed out that a Steinherz boom would certainly alienate King Michael, not knowing that King Michael himself was on the verge of rendering this precaution unnecessary by carrying out too faithfully his part of the programme. It was a paragraph in a weekly society paper which made his doings known at Llandiarmid. Queen Ernestine brought the paper to her husband when it reached the Castle, and pointed out to him anxiously the “Lady’s Letter from the Riviera.”
“Listen to this, Cyril,” she said. “‘Among last week’s arrivals at Nice was the young King of Thracia, travelling incognito as Baron von Neuburg. He may be seen every day in close attendance on the pretty Grand-Duchess Sonya, who is making a short stay at the Conciliation with her father, the Grand-Duke Eugen of Scythia, and the announcement of their betrothal is daily expected. It is well known that the attachment between them is of long standing, but that the course of true love was interrupted by the attempt of the Dowager Queen and her English husband to marry King Michael to the latter’s niece, a daughter of the Marquis of Caerleon. Happily the young lady was possessed of less ambition or more good sense than her august relations, and made a love-match with a commoner a year or two ago, so that her unwilling suitor is at liberty to return to the real object of his affections.’”
“It strikes me,” said Cyril, “that there is something more than the unbridled imagination of the lady journalist at work here. I seem to recognise the touch of a well-known hand. Let me look.” He turned back to the beginning of the letter, with its usual altruistic self-congratulation on the number of distinguished personages sojourning on the Riviera, and pointed out among them the name of the Princess Dowager of Dardania. “As usual!” he said. “Well, that relieves your mind a little, doesn’t it? All the same, it might be as well to write and advise Michael not to play his part too seriously.”
But if Cyril’s acuteness, born of experience, had lessened the Queen’s anxiety, there was no one to reassure Félicia in the same way. She found the paper that evening and read the paragraph, and the crown which had been merely shadowy seemed to become real and desirable in proportion as it receded from her view. She blamed Maimie for mismanaging things, blamed herself for consenting to remain at Llandiarmid and prosecute her claim by deputy, and blamed the King most of all for his inconstancy, showing a jealousy which her own equivocal position did not by any means justify. She slept little that night, and Maimie, who sat up for hours alternately arguing with and soothing her, was at her wits’ end. It was her chief terror that Félicia might insist on following the King to the Riviera forthwith, but it would be almost as bad if she betrayed herself by making scenes at Llandiarmid. She tried to persuade her to remain in bed the next day, but Félicia refused pettishly, and made her appearance about an hour before lunch, looking so ghastly that Usk uttered an exclamation of horror. Unfortunately, this was a fresh grievance.
“If I am looking sick, you needn’t tell me so,” she complained.
“But you ought to see the doctor. Let me ride over and fetch him.”
“No; I want to have you amuse me. Don’t look at me that way. You make me nervous. Why don’t you say something amusing? I guess you would make yourself sick worrying if you were tormented like me—not knowing whether you were a princess or just a no-account girl.”
“Isn’t it enough to be Miss Steinherz of the United States? Look here, Fay, why not chuck it all? It’s only making you ill and miserable, and you have a capital opportunity now. Uncle Cyril asked me to tell you that Don Ramon of Arragon flatly refuses to recognise or even consider your claim, and you can accept that as final. Otherwise you’ll have to approach the Emperor of Pannonia, and go through all this bother again, with just the same result.”
“How do you know it would be just the same?” demanded Félicia sharply. “It’s to your advantage to try and keep me out of my rights, because you don’t want to lose me.”
“Well, oughtn’t you to be pleased at that? But I don’t see why I should lose you if your claim was allowed.”