'The council is privately summoned at once.
G. v. H.'


If the council was thus called before the hour, and that privately, 
it was plain they feared his interference.  Feared: here was a sweet 
thought.  Gotthold, too - Gotthold, who had always used and regarded 
him as a mere peasant lad, had now been at the pains to warn him; 
Gotthold looked for something at his hands.  Well, none should be 
disappointed; the Prince, too long beshadowed by the uxorious lover, 
should now return and shine.  He summoned his valet, repaired the 
disorder of his appearance with elaborate care; and then, curled and 
scented and adorned, Prince Charming in every line, but with a 
twitching nostril, he set forth unattended for the council.




CHAPTER VII - THE PRINCE DISSOLVES THE COUNCIL


IT was as Gotthold wrote.  The liberation of Sir John, 
Greisengesang's uneasy narrative, last of all, the scene between 
Seraphina and the Prince, had decided the conspirators to take a 
step of bold timidity.  There had been a period of bustle, liveried 
messengers speeding here and there with notes; and at half-past ten 
in the morning, about an hour before its usual hour, the council of 
Grunewald sat around the board.

It was not a large body.  At the instance of Gondremark, it had 
undergone a strict purgation, and was now composed exclusively of 
tools.  Three secretaries sat at a side-table.  Seraphina took the 
head; on her right was the Baron, on her left Greisengesang; below 
these Grafinski the treasurer, Count Eisenthal, a couple of non-
combatants, and, to the surprise of all, Gotthold.  He had been 
named a privy councillor by Otto, merely that he might profit by the 
salary; and as he was never known to attend a meeting, it had 
occurred to nobody to cancel his appointment.  His present 
appearance was the more ominous, coming when it did.  Gondremark 
scowled upon him; and the non-combatant on his right, intercepting 
this black look, edged away from one who was so clearly out of 
favour.

'The hour presses, your Highness,' said the Baron; 'may we proceed 
to business?'

'At once,' replied Seraphina.

'Your Highness will pardon me,' said Gotthold; 'but you are still, 
perhaps, unacquainted with the fact that Prince Otto has returned.'

'The Prince will not attend the council,' replied Seraphina, with a 
momentary blush.  'The despatches, Herr Cancellarius?  There is one 
for Gerolstein?'

A secretary brought a paper.

'Here, madam,' said Greisengesang.  'Shall I read it?'

'We are all familiar with its terms,' replied Gondremark.  'Your 
Highness approves?'

'Unhesitatingly,' said Seraphina.

'It may then be held as read,' concluded the Baron.  'Will your 
Highness sign?'

The Princess did so; Gondremark, Eisenthal, and one of the non-
combatants followed suit; and the paper was then passed across the 
table to the librarian.  He proceeded leisurely to read.

'We have no time to spare, Herr Doctor,' cried the Baron brutally.  
'If you do not choose to sign on the authority of your sovereign, 
pass it on.  Or you may leave the table,' he added, his temper 
ripping out.

'I decline your invitation, Herr von Gondremark; and my sovereign, 
as I continue to observe with regret, is still absent from the 
board,' replied the Doctor calmly; and he resumed the perusal of the 
paper, the rest chafing and exchanging glances.  'Madame and 
gentlemen,' he said, at last, 'what I hold in my hand is simply a 
declaration of war.'

'Simply,' said Seraphina, flashing defiance.

'The sovereign of this country is under the same roof with us,' 
continued Gotthold, 'and I insist he shall be summoned.  It is 
needless to adduce my reasons; you are all ashamed at heart of this 
projected treachery.'

The council waved like a sea.  There were various outcries.

'You insult the Princess,' thundered Gondremark.

'I maintain my protest,' replied Gotthold.

At the height of this confusion the door was thrown open; an usher 
announced, 'Gentlemen, the Prince!' and Otto, with his most 
excellent bearing, entered the apartment.  It was like oil upon the 
troubled waters; every one settled instantly into his place, and 
Griesengesang, to give himself a countenance, became absorbed in the 
arrangement of his papers; but in their eagerness to dissemble, one 
and all neglected to rise.

'Gentlemen,' said the Prince, pausing.

They all got to their feet in a moment; and this reproof still 
further demoralised the weaker brethren.

The Prince moved slowly towards the lower end of the table; then he 
paused again, and, fixing his eye on Greisengesang, 'How comes it, 
Herr Cancellarius,' he asked, 'that I have received no notice of the 
change of hour?'

'Your Highness,' replied the Chancellor, 'her Highness the Princess 
. . .' and there paused.

'I understood,' said Seraphina, taking him up, 'that you did not 
purpose to be present.'

Their eyes met for a second, and Seraphina's fell; but her anger 
only burned the brighter for that private shame.

'And now, gentlemen,' said Otto, taking his chair, 'I pray you to be 
seated.  I have been absent: there are doubtless some arrears; but 
ere we proceed to business, Herr Grafinski, you will direct four 
thousand crowns to be sent to me at once.  Make a note, if you 
please,' he added, as the treasurer still stared in wonder.

'Four thousand crowns?' asked Seraphina.  'Pray, for what?'

'Madam,' returned Otto, smiling, 'for my own purposes.'

Gondremark spurred up Grafinski underneath the table.

'If your Highness will indicate the destination . . . ' began the 
puppet.

'You are not here, sir, to interrogate your Prince,' said Otto.

Grafinski looked for help to his commander; and Gondremark came to 
his aid, in suave and measured tones.

'Your Highness may reasonably be surprised,' he said; 'and Herr 
Grafinski, although I am convinced he is clear of the intention of 
offending, would have perhaps done better to begin with an 
explanation.  The resources of the state are at the present moment 
entirely swallowed up, or, as we hope to prove, wisely invested.  In 
a month from now, I do not question we shall be able to meet any 
command your Highness may lay upon us; but at this hour I fear that, 
even in so small a matter, he must prepare himself for 
disappointment.  Our zeal is no less, although our power may be 
inadequate.'

'How much, Herr Grafinski, have we in the treasury?' asked Otto.

'Your Highness,' protested the treasurer, 'we have immediate need of 
every crown.'

'I think, sir, you evade me,' flashed the Prince; and then turning 
to the side-table, 'Mr. Secretary,' he added, 'bring me, if you 
please, the treasury docket.'

Herr Grafinski became deadly pale; the Chancellor, expecting his own 
turn, was probably engaged in prayer; Gondremark was watching like a 
ponderous cat.  Gotthold, on his part, looked on with wonder at his 
cousin; he was certainly showing spirit, but what, in such a time of 
gravity, was all this talk of money? and why should he waste his 
strength upon a personal issue?

'I find,' said Otto, with his finger on the docket, 'that we have 
20,000 crowns in case.'

'That is exact, your Highness,' replied the Baron.  'But our 
liabilities, all of which are happily not liquid, amount to a far 
larger sum; and at the present point of time it would be morally 
impossible to divert a single florin.  Essentially, the case is 
empty.  We have, already presented, a large note for material of 
war.'

'Material of war?' exclaimed Otto, with an excellent assumption of 
surprise.  'But if my memory serves me right, we settled these 
accounts in January.'

'There have been further orders,' the Baron explained.  'A new park 
of artillery has been completed; five hundred stand of arms, seven 
hundred baggage mules - the details are in a special memorandum. - 
Mr. Secretary Holtz, the memorandum, if you please.'

'One would think, gentlemen, that we were going to war,' said Otto.

'We are,' said Seraphina.

'War!' cried the Prince, 'and, gentlemen, with whom?  The peace of 
Grunewald has endured for centuries.  What aggression, what insult, 
have we suffered?'

'Here, your Highness,' said Gotthold, 'is the ultimatum.  It was in 
the very article of signature, when your Highness so opportunely 
entered.'

Otto laid the paper before him; as he read, his fingers played 
tattoo upon the table.  'Was it proposed,' he inquired, 'to send 
this paper forth without a knowledge of my pleasure?'

One of the non-combatants, eager to trim, volunteered an answer.  
'The Herr Doctor von Hohenstockwitz had just entered his dissent,' 
he added.

'Give me the rest of this correspondence,' said the Prince.  It was 
handed to him, and he read it patiently from end to end, while the 
councillors sat foolishly enough looking before them on the table.

The secretaries, in the background, were exchanging glances of 
delight; a row at the council was for them a rare and welcome 
feature.

'Gentlemen,' said Otto, when he had finished, 'I have read with 
pain.  This claim upon Obermunsterol is palpably unjust; it has not 
a tincture, not a show, of justice.  There is not in all this ground 
enough for after-dinner talk, and you propose to force it as a CASUS 
BELLI.'

'Certainly, your Highness,' returned Gondremark, too wise to defend 
the indefensible, 'the claim on Obermunsterol is simply a pretext.'

'It is well,' said the Prince.  'Herr Cancellarius, take your pen.  
"The council," he began to dictate - 'I withhold all notice of my 
intervention,' he said, in parenthesis, and addressing himself more 
directly to his wife; 'and I say nothing of the strange suppression 
by which this business has been smuggled past my knowledge.  I am 
content to be in time - "The council,"' he resumed, '"on a further 
examination of the facts, and enlightened by the note in the last 
despatch from Gerolstein, have the pleasure to announce that they 
are entirely at one, both as to fact and sentiment, with the Grand-
Ducal Court of Gerolstein."  You have it?  Upon these lines, sir, 
you will draw up the despatch.'

'If your Highness will allow me,' said the Baron, 'your Highness is 
so imperfectly acquainted with the internal history of this 
correspondence, that any interference will be merely hurtful.  Such 
a paper as your Highness proposes would be to stultify the whole 
previous policy of Grunewald.'

'The policy of Grunewald!' cried the Prince.  'One would suppose you 
had no sense of humour!  Would you fish in a coffee cup?'

'With deference, your Highness,' returned the Baron, 'even in a 
coffee cup there may be poison.  The purpose of this war is not 
simply territorial enlargement; still less is it a war of glory; 
for, as your Highness indicates, the state of Grunewald is too small 
to be ambitious.  But the body politic is seriously diseased; 
republicanism, socialism, many disintegrating ideas are abroad; 
circle within circle, a really formidable organisation has grown up 
about your Highness's throne.'

'I have heard of it, Herr von Gondremark,' put in the Prince; 'but I 
have reason to be aware that yours is the more authoritative 
information.'

'I am honoured by this expression of my Prince's confidence' 
returned Gondremark, unabashed.  'It is, therefore, with a single 
eye to these disorders that our present external policy has been 
shaped.  Something was required to divert public attention, to 
employ the idle, to popularise your Highness's rule, and, if it were 
possible, to enable him to reduce the taxes at a blow and to a 
notable amount.  The proposed expedition - for it cannot without 
hyperbole be called a war - seemed to the council to combine the 
various characters required; a marked improvement in the public 
sentiment has followed even upon our preparations; and I cannot 
doubt that when success shall follow, the effect will surpass even 
our boldest hopes.'

'You are very adroit, Herr von Gondremark,' said Otto.  'You fill me 
with admiration.  I had not heretofore done justice to your 
qualities.'

Seraphina looked up with joy, supposing Otto conquered; but 
Gondremark still waited, armed at every point; he knew how very 
stubborn is the revolt of a weak character.

'And the territorial army scheme, to which I was persuaded to 
consent - was it secretly directed to the same end?' the Prince 
asked.

'I still believe the effect to have been good,' replied the Baron; 
'discipline and mounting guard are excellent sedatives.  But I will 
avow to your Highness, I was unaware, at the date of that decree, of 
the magnitude of the revolutionary movement; nor did any of us, I 
think, imagine that such a territorial army was a part of the 
republican proposals.'

'It was?' asked Otto.  'Strange!  Upon what fancied grounds?'

'The grounds were indeed fanciful,' returned the Baron.  'It was 
conceived among the leaders that a territorial army, drawn from and 
returning to the people, would, in the event of any popular 
uprising, prove lukewarm or unfaithful to the throne.'

'I see,' said the Prince.  'I begin to understand.'

'His Highness begins to understand?' repeated Gondremark, with the 
sweetest politeness.  'May I beg of him to complete the phrase?'

'The history of the revolution,' replied Otto dryly.  'And now,' he 
added, 'what do you conclude?'

'I conclude, your Highness, with a simple reflection,' said the 
Baron, accepting the stab without a quiver, 'the war is popular; 
were the rumour contradicted to-morrow, a considerable 
disappointment would be felt in many classes; and in the present 
tension of spirits, the most lukewarm sentiment may be enough to 
precipitate events.  There lies the danger.  The revolution hangs 
imminent; we sit, at this council board, below the sword of 
Damocles.'

'We must then lay our heads together,' said the Prince, 'and devise 
some honourable means of safety.'

Up to this moment, since the first note of opposition fell from the 
librarian, Seraphina had uttered about twenty words.  With a 
somewhat heightened colour, her eyes generally lowered, her foot 
sometimes nervously tapping on the floor, she had kept her own 
counsel and commanded her anger like a hero.  But at this stage of 
the engagement she lost control of her impatience.

'Means!' she cried.  'They have been found and prepared before you 
knew the need for them.  Sign the despatch, and let us be done with 
this delay.'

'Madam, I said "honourable,"' returned Otto, bowing.  'This war is, 
in my eyes, and by Herr von Gondremark's account, an inadmissible 
expedient.  If we have misgoverned here in Grunewald, are the people 
of Gerolstein to bleed and pay for our mis-doings?  Never, madam; 
not while I live.  But I attach so much importance to all that I 
have heard to-day for the first time - and why only to-day, I do not 
even stop to ask - that I am eager to find some plan that I can 
follow with credit to myself.'

'And should you fail?' she asked.

'Should I fail, I will then meet the blow half-way,' replied the 
Prince.  'On the first open discontent, I shall convoke the States, 
and, when it pleases them to bid me, abdicate.'

Seraphina laughed angrily.  'This is the man for whom we have been 
labouring!' she cried.  'We tell him of change; he will devise the 
means, he says; and his device is abdication?  Sir, have you no 
shame to come here at the eleventh hour among those who have borne 
the heat and burthen of the day?  Do you not wonder at yourself?  I, 
sir, was here in my place, striving to uphold your dignity alone.  I 
took counsel with the wisest I could find, while you were eating and 
hunting.  I have laid my plans with foresight; they were ripe for 
action; and then - 'she choked - 'then you return - for a forenoon - 
to ruin all!  To-morrow, you will be once more about your pleasures; 
you will give us leave once more to think and work for you; and 
again you will come back, and again you will thwart what you had not 
the industry or knowledge to conceive.  O! it is intolerable.  Be 
modest, sir.  Do not presume upon the rank you cannot worthily 
uphold.  I would not issue my commands with so much gusto - it is 
from no merit in yourself they are obeyed.  What are you?  What have 
you to do in this grave council?  Go,' she cried, 'go among your 
equals?  The very people in the streets mock at you for a prince.'

At this surprising outburst the whole council sat aghast.

'Madam,' said the Baron, alarmed out of his caution, 'command 
yourself.'

'Address yourself to me, sir!' cried the Prince.  'I will not bear 
these whisperings!'

Seraphina burst into tears.

'Sir,' cried the Baron, rising, 'this lady - '

'Herr von Gondremark,' said the Prince, 'one more observation, and I 
place you under arrest.'

'Your Highness is the master,' replied Gondremark, bowing.

'Bear it in mind more constantly,' said Otto.  'Herr Cancellarius, 
bring all the papers to my cabinet.  Gentlemen, the council is 
dissolved.'

And he bowed and left the apartment, followed by Greisengesang and 
the secretaries, just at the moment when the Princess's ladies, 
summoned in all haste, entered by another door to help her forth.




CHAPTER VIII - THE PARTY OF WAR TAKES ACTION


HALF an hour after, Gondremark was once more closeted with 
Seraphina.

'Where is he now?' she asked, on his arrival.

'Madam, he is with the Chancellor,' replied the Baron.  'Wonder of 
wonders, he is at work!'

'Ah,' she said, 'he was born to torture me!  O what a fall, what a 
humiliation!  Such a scheme to wreck upon so small a trifle!  But 
now all is lost.'

'Madam,' said Gondremark, 'nothing is lost.  Something, on the other 
hand, is found.  You have found your senses; you see him as he is - 
see him as you see everything where your too-good heart is not in 
question - with the judicial, with the statesman's eye.  So long as 
he had a right to interfere, the empire that may be was still 
distant.  I have not entered on this course without the plain 
foresight of its dangers; and even for this I was prepared.  But, 
madam, I knew two things: I knew that you were born to command, that 
I was born to serve; I knew that by a rare conjuncture, the hand had 
found the tool; and from the first I was confident, as I am 
confident to-day, that no hereditary trifler has the power to 
shatter that alliance.'

'I, born to command!' she said.  'Do you forget my tears?'

'Madam, they were the tears of Alexander,' cried the Baron.  'They 
touched, they thrilled me; I, forgot myself a moment - even I!  But 
do you suppose that I had not remarked, that I had not admired, your 
previous bearing? your great self-command?  Ay, that was princely!'  
He paused.  'It was a thing to see.  I drank confidence!  I tried to 
imitate your calm.  And I was well inspired; in my heart, I think 
that I was well inspired; that any man, within the reach of 
argument, had been convinced!  But it was not to be; nor, madam, do 
I regret the failure.  Let us be open; let me disclose my heart.  I 
have loved two things, not unworthily: Grunewald and my sovereign!'  
Here he kissed her hand.  'Either I must resign my ministry, leave 
the land of my adoption and the queen whom I had chosen to obey - or 
- '  He paused again.

'Alas, Herr von Gondremark, there is no "or,"' said Seraphina.

'Nay, madam, give me time,' he replied.  'When first I saw you, you 
were still young; not every man would have remarked your powers; but 
I had not been twice honoured by your conversation ere I had found 
my mistress.  I have, madam, I believe, some genius; and I have much 
ambition.  But the genius is of the serving kind; and to offer a 
career to my ambition, I had to find one born to rule.  This is the 
base and essence of our union; each had need of the other; each 
recognised, master and servant, lever and fulcrum, the complement of 
his endowment.  Marriages, they say, are made in heaven: how much 
more these pure, alborious, intellectual fellowships, born to found 
empires!  Nor is this all.  We found each other ripe, filled with 
great ideas that took shape and clarified with every word.  We grew 
together - ay, madam, in mind we grew together like twin children.  
All of my life until we met was petty and groping; was it not - I 
will flatter myself openly - it WAS the same with you!  Not till 
then had you those eagle surveys, that wide and hopeful sweep of 
intuition!  Thus we had formed ourselves, and we were ready.'

'It is true,' she cried.  'I feel it.  Yours is the genius; your 
generosity confounds your insight; all I could offer you was the 
position, was this throne, to be a fulcrum.  But I offered it 
without reserve; I entered at least warmly into all your thoughts; 
you were sure of me - sure of my support - certain of justice.  Tell 
me, tell me again, that I have helped you.'

'Nay, madam,' he said, 'you made me.  In everything you were my 
inspiration.  And as we prepared our policy, weighing every step, 
how often have I had to admire your perspicacity, your man-like 
diligence and fortitude!  You know that these are not the words of 
flattery; your conscience echoes them; have you spared a day? have 
you indulged yourself in any pleasure?  Young and beautiful, you 
have lived a life of high intellectual effort, of irksome 
intellectual patience with details.  Well, you have your reward: 
with the fall of Brandenau, the throne of your Empire is founded.'

'What thought have you in your mind?' she asked.  'Is not all 
ruined?'

'Nay, my Princess, the same thought is in both our minds,' he said.

'Herr von Gondremark,' she replied, 'by all that I hold sacred, I 
have none; I do not think at all; I am crushed.'

'You are looking at the passionate side of a rich nature, 
misunderstood and recently insulted,' said the Baron.  'Look into 
your intellect, and tell me.'

'I find nothing, nothing but tumult,' she replied.

'You find one word branded, madam,' returned the Baron: 
'"Abdication!"'

'O!' she cried.  'The coward!  He leaves me to bear all, and in the 
hour of trial he stabs me from behind.  There is nothing in him, not 
respect, not love, not courage - his wife, his dignity, his throne, 
the honour of his father, he forgets them all!'

'Yes,' pursued the Baron, 'the word Abdication.  I perceive a 
glimmering there.'

'I read your fancy,' she returned.  'It is mere madness, midsummer 
madness.  Baron, I am more unpopular than he.  You know it.  They 
can excuse, they can love, his weakness; but me, they hate.'

'Such is the gratitude of peoples,' said the Baron.  'But we trifle.  
Here, madam, are my plain thoughts.  The man who in the hour of 
danger speaks of abdication is, for me, a venomous animal.  I speak 
with the bluntness of gravity, madam; this is no hour for mincing.  
The coward, in a station of authority, is more dangerous than fire.  
We dwell on a volcano; if this man can have his way, Grunewald 
before a week will have been deluged with innocent blood.  You know 
the truth of what I say; we have looked unblenching into this ever-
possible catastrophe.  To him it is nothing: he will abdicate!  
Abdicate, just God! and this unhappy country committed to his 
charge, and the lives of men and the honour of women . . .'  His 
voice appeared to fail him; in an instant he had conquered his 
emotion and resumed: 'But you, madam, conceive more worthily of your 
responsibilities.  I am with you in the thought; and in the face of 
the horrors that I see impending, I say, and your heart repeats it - 
we have gone too far to pause.  Honour, duty, ay, and the care of 
our own lives, demand we should proceed.'

She was looking at him, her brow thoughtfully knitted.  'I feel it,' 
she said.  'But how?  He has the power.'

'The power, madam?  The power is in the army,' he replied; and then 
hastily, ere she could intervene, 'we have to save ourselves,' he 
went on; 'I have to save my Princess, she has to save her minister; 
we have both of us to save this infatuated youth from his own 
madness.  He in the outbreak would be the earliest victim; I see 
him,' he cried, 'torn in pieces; and Grunewald, unhappy Grunewald!  
Nay, madam, you who have the power must use it; it lies hard upon 
your conscience.'

'Show me how!' she cried.  'Suppose I were to place him under some 
constraint, the revolution would break upon us instantly.'

The Baron feigned defeat.  'It is true,' he said.  'You see more 
clearly than I do.  Yet there should, there must be, some way.'  And 
he waited for his chance.

'No,' she said; 'I told you from the first there is no remedy.  Our 
hopes are lost: lost by one miserable trifler, ignorant, fretful, 
fitful - who will have disappeared to-morrow, who knows? to his 
boorish pleasures!'

Any peg would do for Gondremark.  'The thing!' he cried, striking 
his brow.  'Fool, not to have thought of it!  Madam, without perhaps 
knowing it, you have solved our problem.'

'What do you mean?  Speak!' she said.

He appeared to collect himself; and then, with a smile, 'The 
Prince,' he said, 'must go once more a-hunting.'

'Ay, if he would!' cried she, 'and stay there!'

'And stay there,' echoed the Baron.  It was so significantly said, 
that her face changed; and the schemer, fearful of the sinister 
ambiguity of his expressions, hastened to explain.  'This time he 
shall go hunting in a carriage, with a good escort of our foreign 
lancers.  His destination shall be the Felsenburg; it is healthy, 
the rock is high, the windows are small and barred; it might have 
been built on purpose.  We shall intrust the captaincy to the 
Scotsman Gordon; he at least will have no scruple.  Who will miss 
the sovereign?  He is gone hunting; he came home on Tuesday, on 
Thursday he returned; all is usual in that.  Meanwhile the war 
proceeds; our Prince will soon weary of his solitude; and about the 
time of our triumph, or, if he prove very obstinate, a little later, 
he shall be released upon a proper understanding, and I see him once 
more directing his theatricals.'

Seraphina sat gloomy, plunged in thought.  'Yes,' she said suddenly, 
'and the despatch?  He is now writing it.'

'It cannot pass the council before Friday,' replied Gondremark; 'and 
as for any private note, the messengers are all at my disposal.  
They are picked men, madam.  I am a person of precaution.'

'It would appear so,' she said, with a flash of her occasional 
repugnance to the man; and then after a pause, 'Herr von 
Gondremark,' she added, 'I recoil from this extremity.'

'I share your Highness's repugnance,' answered he.  'But what would 
you have?  We are defenceless, else.'

'I see it, but this is sudden.  It is a public crime,' she said, 
nodding at him with a sort of horror.

'Look but a little deeper,' he returned, 'and whose is the crime?'

'His!' she cried.  'His, before God!  And I hold him liable.  But 
still - '

'It is not as if he would be harmed,' submitted Gondremark.

'I know it,' she replied, but it was still unheartily.

And then, as brave men are entitled, by prescriptive right as old as 
the world's history, to the alliance and the active help of Fortune, 
the punctual goddess stepped down from the machine.  One of the 
Princess's ladies begged to enter; a man, it appeared, had brought a 
line for the Freiherr von Gondremark.  It proved to be a pencil 
billet, which the crafty Greisengesang had found the means to 
scribble and despatch under the very guns of Otto; and the daring of 
the act bore testimony to the terror of the actor.  For 
Greisengesang had but one influential motive: fear.  The note ran 
thus: 'At the first council, procuration to be withdrawn. - CORN. 
GREIS.'

So, after three years of exercise, the right of signature was to be 
stript from Seraphina.  It was more than an insult; it was a public 
disgrace; and she did not pause to consider how she had earned it, 
but morally bounded under the attack as bounds the wounded tiger.

'Enough,' she said; 'I will sign the order.  When shall he leave?'

'It will take me twelve hours to collect my men, and it had best be 
done at night.  To-morrow midnight, if you please?' answered the 
Baron.

'Excellent,' she said.  'My door is always open to you, Baron.  As 
soon as the order is prepared, bring it me to sign.'

'Madam,' he said, 'alone of all of us you do not risk your head in 
this adventure.  For that reason, and to prevent all hesitation, I 
venture to propose the order should be in your hand throughout.'

'You are right,' she replied.

He laid a form before her, and she wrote the order in a clear hand, 
and re-read it.  Suddenly a cruel smile came on her face.  'I had 
forgotten his puppet,' said she.  'They will keep each other 
company.'  And she interlined and initiated the condemnation of 
Doctor Gotthold.

'Your Highness has more memory than your servant,' said the Baron; 
and then he, in his turn, carefully perused the fateful paper.  
'Good!' said he.

'You will appear in the drawing-room, Baron?' she asked.

'I thought it better,' said he, 'to avoid the possibility of a 
public affront.  Anything that shook my credit might hamper us in 
the immediate future.'

'You are right,' she said; and she held out her hand as to an old 
friend and equal.




CHAPTER IX - THE PRICE OF THE RIVER FARM; IN WHICH VAINGLORY GOES 
BEFORE A FALL


THE pistol had been practically fired.  Under ordinary circumstances 
the scene at the council table would have entirely exhausted Otto's 
store both of energy and anger; he would have begun to examine and 
condemn his conduct, have remembered all that was true, forgotten 
all that was unjust in Seraphina's onslaught; and by half an hour 
after would have fallen into that state of mind in which a Catholic 
flees to the confessional and a sot takes refuge with the bottle.  
Two matters of detail preserved his spirits.  For, first, he had 
still an infinity of business to transact; and to transact business, 
for a man of Otto's neglectful and procrastinating habits, is the 
best anodyne for conscience.  All afternoon he was hard at it with 
the Chancellor, reading, dictating, signing, and despatching papers; 
and this kept him in a glow of self-approval.  But, secondly, his 
vanity was still alarmed; he had failed to get the money; to-morrow 
before noon he would have to disappoint old Killian; and in the eyes 
of that family which counted him so little, and to which he had 
sought to play the part of the heroic comforter, he must sink lower 
than at first.  To a man of Otto's temper, this was death.  He could 
not accept the situation.  And even as he worked, and worked wisely 
and well, over the hated details of his principality, he was 
secretly maturing a plan by which to turn the situation.  It was a 
scheme as pleasing to the man as it was dishonourable in the prince; 
in which his frivolous nature found and took vengeance for the 
gravity and burthen of the afternoon.  He chuckled as he thought of 
it: and Greisengesang heard him with wonder, and attributed his 
lively spirits to the skirmish of the morning.

Led by this idea, the antique courtier ventured to compliment his 
sovereign on his bearing.  It reminded him, he said, of Otto's 
father.

'What?' asked the Prince, whose thoughts were miles away.

'Your Highness's authority at the board,' explained the flatterer.

'O, that!  O yes,' returned Otto; but for all his carelessness, his 
vanity was delicately tickled, and his mind returned and dwelt 
approvingly over the details of his victory.  'I quelled them all,' 
he thought.

When the more pressing matters had been dismissed, it was already 
late, and Otto kept the Chancellor to dinner, and was entertained 
with a leash of ancient histories and modern compliments.  The 
Chancellor's career had been based, from the first off-put, on 
entire subserviency; he had crawled into honours and employments; 
and his mind was prostitute.  The instinct of the creature served 
him well with Otto.  First, he let fall a sneering word or two upon 
the female intellect; thence he proceeded to a closer engagement; 
and before the third course he was artfully dissecting Seraphina's 
character to her approving husband.  Of course no names were used; 
and of course the identity of that abstract or ideal man, with whom 
she was currently contrasted, remained an open secret.  But this 
stiff old gentleman had a wonderful instinct for evil, thus to wind 
his way into man's citadel; thus to harp by the hour on the virtues 
of his hearer and not once alarm his self-respect.  Otto was all 
roseate, in and out, with flattery and Tokay and an approving 
conscience.  He saw himself in the most attractive colours.  If even 
Greisengesang, he thought, could thus espy the loose stitches in 
Seraphina's character, and thus disloyally impart them to the 
opposite camp, he, the discarded husband - the dispossessed Prince - 
could scarce have erred on the side of severity.

In this excellent frame he bade adieu to the old gentleman, whose 
voice had proved so musical, and set forth for the drawing-room.  
Already on the stair, he was seized with some compunction; but when 
he entered the great gallery and beheld his wife, the Chancellor's 
abstract flatteries fell from him like rain, and he re-awoke to the 
poetic facts of life.  She stood a good way off below a shining 
lustre, her back turned.  The bend of her waist overcame him with 
physical weakness.  This was the girl-wife who had lain in his arms 
and whom he had sworn to cherish; there was she, who was better than 
success.

It was Seraphina who restored him from the blow.  She swam forward 
and smiled upon her husband with a sweetness that was insultingly 
artificial.  'Frederic,' she lisped, 'you are late.'  It was a scene 
of high comedy, such as is proper to unhappy marriages; and her 
APLOMB disgusted him.

There was no etiquette at these small drawing-rooms.  People came 
and went at pleasure.  The window embrasures became the roost of 
happy couples; at the great chimney the talkers mostly congregated, 
each full-charged with scandal; and down at the farther end the 
gamblers gambled.  It was towards this point that Otto moved, not 
ostentatiously, but with a gentle insistence, and scattering 
attentions as he went.  Once abreast of the card-table, he placed 
himself opposite to Madame von Rosen, and, as soon as he had caught 
her eye, withdrew to the embrasure of a window.  There she had 
speedily joined him.

'You did well to call me,' she said, a little wildly.  'These cards 
will be my ruin.'

'Leave them,' said Otto.

'I!' she cried, and laughed; 'they are my destiny.  My only chance 
was to die of a consumption; now I must die in a garret.'

'You are bitter to-night,' said Otto.

'I have been losing,' she replied.  'You do not know what greed is.'

'I have come, then, in an evil hour,' said he.

'Ah, you wish a favour!' she cried, brightening beautifully.

'Madam,' said he, 'I am about to found my party, and I come to you 
for a recruit.'

'Done,' said the Countess.  'I am a man again.'

'I may be wrong,' continued Otto, 'but I believe upon my heart you 
wish me no ill.'

'I wish you so well,' she said, 'that I dare not tell it you.'

'Then if I ask my favour?' quoth the Prince.

'Ask it, MON PRINCE,' she answered.  'Whatever it is, it is 
granted.'

'I wish you,' he returned, 'this very night to make the farmer of 
our talk.'

'Heaven knows your meaning!' she exclaimed.  'I know not, neither 
care; there are no bounds to my desire to please you.  Call him 
made.'

'I will put it in another way,' returned Otto.  'Did you ever 
steal?'

'Often!' cried the Countess.  'I have broken all the ten 
commandments; and if there were more to-morrow, I should not sleep 
till I had broken these.'

'This is a case of burglary: to say the truth, I thought it would 
amuse you,' said the Prince.

'I have no practical experience,' she replied, 'but O! the good-
will!  I have broken a work-box in my time, and several hearts, my 
own included.  Never a house!  But it cannot be difficult; sins are 
so unromantically easy!  What are we to break?'

'Madam, we are to break the treasury,' said Otto and he sketched to 
her briefly, wittily, with here and there a touch of pathos, the 
story of his visit to the farm, of his promise to buy it, and of the 
refusal with which his demand for money had been met that morning at 
the council; concluding with a few practical words as to the 
treasury windows, and the helps and hindrances of the proposed 
exploit.

'They refused you the money,' she said when he had done.  'And you 
accepted the refusal?  Well!'

'They gave their reasons,' replied Otto, colouring.  'They were not 
such as I could combat; and I am driven to dilapidate the funds of 
my own country by a theft.  It is not dignified; but it is fun.'

'Fun,' she said; 'yes.'  And then she remained silently plunged in 
thought for an appreciable time.  'How much do you require?' she 
asked at length.

'Three thousand crowns will do,' he answered, 'for I have still some 
money of my own.'

'Excellent,' she said, regaining her levity.  'I am your true 
accomplice.  And where are we to meet?'

'You know the Flying Mercury,' he answered, 'in the Park?  Three 
pathways intersect; there they have made a seat and raised the 
statue.  The spot is handy and the deity congenial.'

'Child,' she said, and tapped him with her fan.  'But do you know, 
my Prince, you are an egoist - your handy trysting-place is miles 
from me.  You must give me ample time; I cannot, I think, possibly 
be there before two.  But as the bell beats two, your helper shall 
arrive: welcome, I trust.  Stay - do you bring any one?' she added.  
'O, it is not for a chaperon - I am not a prude!'

'I shall bring a groom of mine,' said Otto.  'I caught him stealing 
corn.'

'His name?' she asked.

'I profess I know not.  I am not yet intimate with my corn-stealer,' 
returned the Prince.  'It was in a professional capacity - '

'Like me!  Flatterer!' she cried.  'But oblige me in one thing.  Let 
me find you waiting at the seat - yes, you shall await me; for on 
this expedition it shall be no longer Prince and Countess, it shall 
be the lady and the squire - and your friend the thief shall be no 
nearer than the fountain.  Do you promise?'

'Madam, in everything you are to command; you shall be captain, I am 
but supercargo,' answered Otto.

'Well, Heaven bring all safe to port!' she said.  'It is not 
Friday!'

Something in her manner had puzzled Otto, had possibly touched him 
with suspicion.

'Is it not strange,' he remarked, 'that I should choose my 
accomplice from the other camp?'

'Fool!' she said.  'But it is your only wisdom that you know your 
friends.'  And suddenly, in the vantage of the deep window, she 
caught up his hand and kissed it with a sort of passion.  'Now go,' 
she added, 'go at once.'

He went, somewhat staggered, doubting in his heart that he was over-
bold.  For in that moment she had flashed upon him like a jewel; and 
even through the strong panoply of a previous love he had been 
conscious of a shock.  Next moment he had dismissed the fear.

Both Otto and the Countess retired early from the drawing-room; and 
the Prince, after an elaborate feint, dismissed his valet, and went 
forth by the private passage and the back postern in quest of the 
groom.

Once more the stable was in darkness, once more Otto employed the 
talismanic knock, and once more the groom appeared and sickened with 
terror.

'Good-evening, friend,' said Otto pleasantly.  'I want you to bring 
a corn sack - empty this time - and to accompany me.  We shall be 
gone all night.'

'Your Highness,' groaned the man, 'I have the charge of the small 
stables.  I am here alone.'

'Come,' said the Prince, 'you are no such martinet in duty.'  And 
then seeing that the man was shaking from head to foot, Otto laid a 
hand upon his shoulder.  'If I meant you harm,' he said, 'should I 
be here?'

The fellow became instantly reassured.  He got the sack; and Otto 
led him round by several paths and avenues, conversing pleasantly by 
the way, and left him at last planted by a certain fountain where a 
goggle-eyed Triton spouted intermittently into a rippling laver.  
Thence he proceeded alone to where, in a round clearing, a copy of 
Gian Bologna's Mercury stood tiptoe in the twilight of the stars.  
The night was warm and windless.  A shaving of new moon had lately 
arisen; but it was still too small and too low down in heaven to 
contend with the immense host of lesser luminaries; and the rough 
face of the earth was drenched with starlight.  Down one of the 
alleys, which widened as it receded, he could see a part of the 
lamplit terrace where a sentry silently paced, and beyond that a 
corner of the town with interlacing street-lights.  But all around 
him the young trees stood mystically blurred in the dim shine; and 
in the stock-still quietness the upleaping god appeared alive.

In this dimness and silence of the night, Otto's conscience became 
suddenly and staringly luminous, like the dial of a city clock.  He 
averted the eyes of his mind, but the finger rapidly travelling, 
pointed to a series of misdeeds that took his breath away.  What was 
he doing in that place?  The money had been wrongly squandered, but 
that was largely by his own neglect.  And he now proposed to 
embarrass the finances of this country which he had been too idle to 
govern.  And he now proposed to squander the money once again, and 
this time for a private, if a generous end.  And the man whom he had 
reproved for stealing corn he was now to set stealing treasure.  And 
then there was Madame von Rosen, upon whom he looked down with some 
of that ill-favoured contempt of the chaste male for the imperfect 
woman.  Because he thought of her as one degraded below scruples, he 
had picked her out to be still more degraded, and to risk her whole 
irregular establishment in life by complicity in this dishonourable 
act.  It was uglier than a seduction.

Otto had to walk very briskly and whistle very busily; and when at 
last he heard steps in the narrowest and darkest of the alleys, it 
was with a gush of relief that he sprang to meet the Countess.  To 
wrestle alone with one's good angel is so hard! and so precious, at 
the proper time, is a companion certain to be less virtuous than 
oneself!

It was a young man who came towards him - a young man of small 
stature and a peculiar gait, wearing a wide flapping hat, and 
carrying, with great weariness, a heavy bag.  Otto recoiled; but the 
young man held up his hand by way of signal, and coming up with a 
panting run, as if with the last of his endurance, laid the bag upon 
the ground, threw himself upon the bench, and disclosed the features 
of Madame von Rosen.

'You, Countess!' cried the Prince.

'No, no,' she panted, 'the Count von Rosen - my young brother.  A 
capital fellow.  Let him get his breath.'

'Ah, madam. . .' said he.

'Call me Count,' she returned, 'respect my incognito.'

'Count be it, then,' he replied.  'And let me implore that gallant 
gentleman to set forth at once on our enterprise.'

'Sit down beside me here,' she returned, patting the further corner 
of the bench.  'I will follow you in a moment.  O, I am so tired - 
feel how my heart leaps!  Where is your thief?'

'At his post,' replied Otto.  'Shall I introduce him?  He seems an 
excellent companion.'

'No,' she said, 'do not hurry me yet.  I must speak to you.  Not but 
I adore your thief; I adore any one who has the spirit to do wrong.  
I never cared for virtue till I fell in love with my Prince.'  She 
laughed musically.  'And even so, it is not for your virtues,' she 
added.

Otto was embarrassed.  'And now,' he asked, 'if you are anyway 
rested?'

'Presently, presently.  Let me breathe,' she said, panting a little 
harder than before.

'And what has so wearied you?' he asked.  'This bag?  And why, in 
the name of eccentricity, a bag?  For an empty one, you might have 
relied on my own foresight; and this one is very far from being 
empty.  My dear Count, with what trash have you come laden?  But the 
shortest method is to see for myself.'  And he put down his hand.

She stopped him at once.  'Otto,' she said, 'no - not that way.  I 
will tell, I will make a clean breast.  It is done already.  I have 
robbed the treasury single-handed.  There are three thousand two 
hundred crowns.  O, I trust it is enough!'

Her embarrassment was so obvious that the Prince was struck into a 
muse, gazing in her face, with his hand still outstretched, and she 
still holding him by the wrist.  'You!' he said at last.  'How?' And 
then drawing himself up, 'O madam,' he cried, 'I understand.  You 
must indeed think meanly of the Prince.'

'Well, then, it was a lie!' she cried.  'The money is mine, honestly 
my own - now yours.  This was an unworthy act that you proposed.  
But I love your honour, and I swore to myself that I should save it 
in your teeth.  I beg of you to let me save it' - with a sudden 
lovely change of tone.  'Otto, I beseech you let me save it.  Take 
this dross from your poor friend who loves you!'

'Madam, madam,' babbled Otto, in the extreme of misery, 'I cannot - 
I must go.'

And he half rose; but she was on the ground before him in an 
instant, clasping his knees.  'No,' she gasped, 'you shall not go.  
Do you despise me so entirely?  It is dross; I hate it; I should 
squander it at play and be no richer; it is an investment, it is to 
save me from ruin.  Otto,' she cried, as he again feebly tried to 
put her from him, 'if you leave me alone in this disgrace, I will 
die here!'  He groaned aloud.  'O,' she said, 'think what I suffer!  
If you suffer from a piece of delicacy, think what I suffer in my 
shame!  To have my trash refused!  You would rather steal, you think 
of me so basely!  You would rather tread my heart in pieces!  O, 
unkind!  O my Prince!  O Otto!  O pity me!'  She was still clasping 
him; then she found his hand and covered it with kisses, and at this 
his head began to turn.  'O,' she cried again, 'I see it!  O what a 
horror!  It is because I am old, because I am no longer beautiful.'  
And she burst into a storm of sobs.

This was the COUP DE GRACE.  Otto had now to comfort and compose her 
as he could, and before many words, the money was accepted.  Between 
the woman and the weak man such was the inevitable end.  Madame von 
Rosen instantly composed her sobs.  She thanked him with a 
fluttering voice, and resumed her place upon the bench, at the far 
end from Otto.  'Now you see,' she said, 'why I bade you keep the 
thief at distance, and why I came alone.  How I trembled for my 
treasure!'

'Madam,' said Otto, with a tearful whimper in his voice, 'spare me!  
You are too good, too noble!'

'I wonder to hear you,' she returned.  'You have avoided a great 
folly.  You will be able to meet your good old peasant.  You have 
found an excellent investment for a friend's money.  You have 
preferred essential kindness to an empty scruple; and now you are 
ashamed of it!  You have made your friend happy; and now you mourn 
as the dove!  Come, cheer up.  I know it is depressing to have done 
exactly right; but you need not make a practice of it.  Forgive 
yourself this virtue; come now, look me in the face and smile!'

He did look at her.  When a man has been embraced by a woman, he 
sees her in a glamour; and at such a time, in the baffling glimmer 
of the stars, she will look wildly well.  The hair is touched with 
light; the eyes are constellations; the face sketched in shadows - a 
sketch, you might say, by passion.  Otto became consoled for his 
defeat; he began to take an interest.  'No,' he said, 'I am no 
ingrate.'

'You promised me fun,' she returned, with a laugh.  'I have given 
you as good.  We have had a stormy SCENA.'

He laughed in his turn, and the sound of the laughter, in either 
case, was hardly reassuring.

'Come, what are you going to give me in exchange,' she continued, 
'for my excellent declamation?'

'What you will,' he said.

'Whatever I will?  Upon your honour?  Suppose I asked the crown?'  
She was flashing upon him, beautiful in triumph.

'Upon my honour,' he replied.

'Shall I ask the crown?' she continued.  'Nay; what should I do with 
it?  Grunewald is but a petty state; my ambition swells above it.  I 
shall ask - I find I want nothing,' she concluded.  'I will give you 
something instead.  I will give you leave to kiss me - once.'

Otto drew near, and she put up her face; they were both smiling, 
both on the brink of laughter, all was so innocent and playful; and 
the Prince, when their lips encountered, was dumbfoundered by the 
sudden convulsion of his being.  Both drew instantly apart, and for 
an appreciable time sat tongue-tied.  Otto was indistinctly 
conscious of a peril in the silence, but could find no words to 
utter.  Suddenly the Countess seemed to awake.  'As for your wife - 
' she began in a clear and steady voice.

The word recalled Otto, with a shudder, from his trance.  'I will 
hear nothing against my wife,' he cried wildly; and then, recovering 
himself and in a kindlier tone, 'I will tell you my one secret,' he 
added.  'I love my wife.'

'You should have let me finish,' she returned, smiling.  'Do you 
suppose I did not mention her on purpose?  You know you had lost 
your head.  Well, so had I.  Come now, do not be abashed by words,' 
she added somewhat sharply.  'It is the one thing I despise.  If you 
are not a fool, you will see that I am building fortresses about 
your virtue.  And at any rate, I choose that you shall understand 
that I am not dying of love for you.  It is a very smiling business; 
no tragedy for me!  And now here is what I have to say about your 
wife; she is not and she never has been Gondremark's mistress.  Be 
sure he would have boasted if she had.  Good-night!'

And in a moment she was gone down the alley, and Otto was alone with 
the bag of money and the flying god.