Chapter Four.
His Majesty Cupid.
As the twilight fell on the following afternoon a fiacre drew up before the Hotel Imperial, one of the best and most select hotels in the Kartner Ring, in Vienna, and from it descended a lady attired in the deep mourning of a widow.
Of the gold-laced concierge she inquired for Count Carl Leitolf, and was at once shown into the lift and conducted to a private sitting-room on the second floor, where a young, fair-moustached, good-looking man, with well-cut, regular features and dark brown eyes, rose quickly as the door opened and the waiter announced her.
The moment the door had closed and they were alone he took his visitor’s hand and raised it reverently to his lips, bowing low, with the exquisite grace of the born courtier.
In an instant she drew it from him and threw back her veil, revealing her pale, beautiful face—the face of her Imperial Highness the Crown Princess Claire.
“Highness!” the man exclaimed, glancing anxiously at the door to reassure himself that it was closed, “I had your note this morning, but—but are you not running too great a risk by coming here? I could not reply, fearing that my letter might fall into other hands; otherwise I would on no account have allowed you to come. You may have been followed. There are, as you know, spies everywhere.”
“I have come, Carl, because I wish to speak to you,” she said, looking unflinchingly into his handsome face. “I wish to know by what right you have followed me here—to Vienna?”