The room was luxurious in its appointments, for since his father’s death he had had it redecorated and refurnished. The stern old monarch had liked a plain, severe, business-like room in which to attend to the details of State, but his son held modern ideas, and loved to surround himself with artistic things, hence the white-and-gold decorations, the electric-light fittings, the furniture and the pale green upholstery were all in the style of the art nouveau, and had the effect of exquisite taste.
A tiny clock ticked softly upon the big, littered writing-table, and from without, in the marble corridor, the slow, even tread of the sentry reached his ear.
Suddenly, while he was smoking and thinking, a low rap was heard; and giving permission to enter, he looked round, and saw Hinckeldeym, who, in Court dress, bowed and advanced, with his cocked hat tucked beneath his arm, saying,—
“I regret, sire, to crave audience at this hour, but it is upon a matter both imperative and confidential.”
“Then shut the inner door,” his Majesty said in a hard voice, and the flabby-faced old fellow closed the second door that was placed there as precaution against eavesdroppers.
“Well?” asked the King, turning to him in some surprise that he should be disturbed at that hour.
“After your Majesty left the Throne Room I was called out to receive an urgent dispatch that had just arrived by Imperial courier from Vienna. This dispatch,” and he drew it from his pocket, “shows most plainly that his Majesty the Emperor is seriously annoyed at your Majesty’s laxness and hesitation to apply for a divorce. Yesterday he called our Ambassador and remarked that although he had degraded the Princess, taken from her all her titles, her decorations, and her privileges, yet you, her husband, had done absolutely nothing. I crave your Majesty’s pardon for being compelled to speak so plainly,” added the wily old fellow, watching the disturbing effect his words had upon his Sovereign.
“That is all very well,” he answered, in a mechanical voice. “The Emperor’s surprise and annoyance are quite natural. I have been awaiting your reports, Hinckeldeym. Before my wife’s disappearance you seemed to be particularly well-informed—through De Trauttenberg, I suppose—of all her movements and her intentions. Yet since she left you have been content to remain in utter ignorance.”
“Not in entire ignorance, sire. Did I not report to you that she went to Vienna in the man’s company?”
“And where is the man at the present moment?”