"I see. Well, now I come to think about it, you might not have heard anything if you'd been there, for the affair was kept very quiet, and those in the secret were pledged not to mention the lady's real name. When I tell you that she is a young Archduchess, closely related to the Archduchess Maria Theresa, and the victim of a most unfortunate marriage, you will understand what I mean by referring to Seilern playing with fire."
"Oh, ho! so that's it? And you are certain he is still infatuated with the lady?"
"Absolutely, unfortunately for him. But let me tell you all about it from the beginning."
II—TRAGEDY OF THE AUSTRIAN ARCHDUCHESS
The story of the young Archduchess Valeria—to give her the fictitious name my informant used, and which is now doubly necessary—is one that has been encountered before in the annals of the Royal Family of Austria.
When the time came for her marriage, those who jealously watch over the conservation of the so-called purity of the Royal blood, carefully chose a husband and—naturally, against her will—united her to a man fully twelve years her senior. Had this been his only disqualification to be the husband of so young and charming a creature as the Archduchess Valeria, she would have had less reason to complain.
Alas! it was not long before she found he was one of the most abject personages who ever crawled within the shadow of the throne of the Hapsburgs. He was a degenerate, in every sense of the word, and possessed a most unenviable reputation.
Into the details of his career I will not enter, as my outspoken informant did, but enough has been said to enable you to form an idea of the married life of the Archduchess Valeria—if, indeed, that adjective can be applied to an existence in which cruelty, drink, and debauchery played so large a part on the husband's side.
Is it surprising that, childless as she happily was, and still sufficiently young and unbroken in spirit to hope for happier days, the Archduchess turned her eyes longingly elsewhere and encountered those of Count Seilern? There are some who contend that the idyll dated from the days before her marriage, and a tale went the rounds of aristocratic circles that the young Count first made the Archduchess's acquaintance when he was a military student and she little more than a schoolgirl. But that may well be the embroidery which is often added to undoubted facts, and these, for which the speaker said he could personally vouch, were briefly as follows: