“I heard yesterday that you’d been seen walking in the Kamthnerstrasse with two women who were not of the nobility. You really oughtn’t to do that. It isn’t fair to us, you know,” he said, twisting his moustache. “We all know how wilful you are, and how you love to scandalise us; but you should draw the line at displaying such socialistic tendencies openly and publicly.”
“My dear old George,” she laughed, turning her bright eyes to him, “you’re only my cousin and not my husband. I shall do exactly what I like. If it amuses and interests me to see the life of the people, I shall do so; therefore it’s no use talking. I have had lots of lectures from the Emperor long ago, and also from my stiff old father-in-law the King. But when they lecture me I only do it all the more,” she declared, with a mischievous laugh upon her sweet face. “So they’ve given me up.”
“You’re incorrigible, Claire—absolutely incorrigible,” her cousin declared as he swung along at her side. “I only do hope that your unconventionality will not be taken advantage of by your jealous enemies. Remember, you are the prettiest woman at our Court as well as at your own. Before long, too, you will be a reigning queen; therefore reflect well whether this disregard of the first rule of Court etiquette, which forbids a member of the Imperial family to converse with a commoner, is wise. For my own part, I don’t think it is.”
“Oh, don’t lecture me any more for goodness’ sake,” exclaimed the Crown Princess with a little musical laugh. “Have this waltz with me.”
And next moment the handsome pair were on their way down the great room with all eyes turned upon them.
When, ten minutes later, they returned to join the Imperial circle about the Emperor, the latter motioned his niece towards him.
“Come to me when this is ended,” he said in a serious voice. “I wish to talk to you. You will find me in the white room at two o’clock.”
The Crown Princess bowed, and returned to the side of her father, the Archduke Charles, a tall, thin, grey-haired man in a brilliant uniform glittering with orders.
She knew that his Majesty’s quick eye had detected that she had spoken with the commoner Steinbach, and anticipated that she was to receive another lecture. Why, she wondered, was Steinbach there? Truth to tell, Court life bored her. She was tired to death of all that intrigue and struggle for place, power, and precedence, and of that unhealthy atmosphere of recklessness wherein she had been born and bred. She longed for the free open life in the country around Wartenstein, the great old castle in the Tyrol that was her home, where she could tramp for miles in the mountains and be friendly with the honest country folk. After her marriage—a marriage of convenience to unite two royal houses—she had found that she had exchanged one stiff and brilliant Court for another, more dull, more stiff, and where the etiquette was even more rigid.
Those three years of married life had wrought a very great change in her.