“You are notoriously a philosopher, Von Herbert,” said Leopold, impatiently. “Your creed is mistrust.”
“I knew the Grand Chamberlain from our school-days,” said the Baron, calmly. “At school he was haughty and headstrong. We entered the royal Hungarian guard together; there he was selfish and profligate. We then separated for years. On my return as your Majesty’s aide-de-camp, I found him the successor to an estate which he had ruined, the husband of a wife whom he had banished from his palace, the Colonel of a regiment of Hulans which he had turned into a school of tyranny, and Grand Chamberlain to your Majesty, an office which I have strong reason to think he used but as a step to objects of a more daring ambition.”
“But his death—his courageous devotion of himself—the dagger in his heart!” exclaimed the Emperor.
“They perplex, without convincing me,” said the Baron.
He looked again at the letter, and came to the words, “Breaking a noble heart.”
“What can be the meaning of this?” asked Leopold, angrily. “Am I not to arrange the alliances of my family as I please? Am I to forfeit my word to my relative, the Prince of Buntzlau, when he makes the most suitable match in the empire for my relative the Princess of Marosin? This is mere insolence, read no more.”
The Baron laid down the letter, and stood in silence.
“Apropos of the Princess,” said Leopold, willing to turn the conversation from topics which vexed him, “has there been any further intelligence of her mysterious purchase—that far-famed plunder of the Turk, her Hungarian chef d’œuvre?”
“If your Majesty alludes to the Princess’s very splendid watch,” said the Baron, “I understand that all possible inquiry has been made, but without the effect of tracing any connection between its sale and the unfortunate assassination of the Turkish envoy.”
“So my cousin,” said the Emperor, with a half smile, “is to be set down by the scandalous Chronicle of Presburg as an accomplice in rifling the pockets of Mohammed? But the whole place seems full of gipsyism, gossiping, and juggling. I should not wonder if that superannuated belle, the Countess Joblonsky, lays the loss of her pendule to my charge, and that the Emperor shall quit Hungary with the character of a receiver of stolen goods.”