CHAPTER X - GOTTHOLD'S REVISED OPINION; AND THE FALL COMPLETED


THE Countess left poor Otto with a caress and buffet simultaneously 
administered.  The welcome word about his wife and the virtuous 
ending of his interview should doubtless have delighted him.  But 
for all that, as he shouldered the bag of money and set forward to 
rejoin his groom, he was conscious of many aching sensibilities.  To 
have gone wrong and to have been set right makes but a double trial 
for man's vanity.  The discovery of his own weakness and possible 
unfaith had staggered him to the heart; and to hear, in the same 
hour, of his wife's fidelity from one who loved her not, increased 
the bitterness of the surprise.

He was about half-way between the fountain and the Flying Mercury 
before his thoughts began to be clear; and he was surprised to find 
them resentful.  He paused in a kind of temper, and struck with his 
hand a little shrub.  Thence there arose instantly a cloud of 
awakened sparrows, which as instantly dispersed and disappeared into 
the thicket.  He looked at them stupidly, and when they were gone 
continued staring at the stars.  'I am angry.  By what right?  By 
none!' he thought; but he was still angry.  He cursed Madame von 
Rosen and instantly repented.  Heavy was the money on his shoulders.

When he reached the fountain, he did, out of ill-humour and parade, 
an unpardonable act.  He gave the money bodily to the dishonest 
groom.  'Keep this for me,' he said, 'until I call for it to-morrow.  
It is a great sum, and by that you will judge that I have not 
condemned you.'  And he strode away ruffling, as if he had done 
something generous.  It was a desperate stroke to re-enter at the 
point of the bayonet into his self-esteem; and, like all such, it 
was fruitless in the end.  He got to bed with the devil, it 
appeared: kicked and tumbled till the grey of the morning; and then 
fell inopportunely into a leaden slumber, and awoke to find it ten.  
To miss the appointment with old Killian after all, had been too 
tragic a miscarriage: and he hurried with all his might, found the 
groom (for a wonder) faithful to his trust, and arrived only a few 
minutes before noon in the guest-chamber of the Morning Star.  
Killian was there in his Sunday's best and looking very gaunt and 
rigid; a lawyer from Brandenau stood sentinel over his outspread 
papers; and the groom and the landlord of the inn were called to 
serve as witnesses.  The obvious deference of that great man, the 
innkeeper, plainly affected the old farmer with surprise; but it was 
not until Otto had taken the pen and signed that the truth flashed 
upon him fully.  Then, indeed, he was beside himself.

'His Highness!' he cried, 'His Highness!' and repeated the 
exclamation till his mind had grappled fairly with the facts.  Then 
he turned to the witnesses.  'Gentlemen,' he said, 'you dwell in a 
country highly favoured by God; for of all generous gentlemen, I 
will say it on my conscience, this one is the king.  I am an old 
man, and I have seen good and bad, and the year of the great famine; 
but a more excellent gentleman, no, never.'

'We know that,' cried the landlord, 'we know that well in Grunewald.  
If we saw more of his Highness we should be the better pleased.'

'It is the kindest Prince,' began the groom, and suddenly closed his 
mouth upon a sob, so that every one turned to gaze upon his emotion 
- Otto not last; Otto struck with remorse, to see the man so 
grateful.

Then it was the lawyer's turn to pay a compliment.  'I do not know 
what Providence may hold in store,' he said, 'but this day should be 
a bright one in the annals of your reign.  The shouts of armies 
could not be more eloquent than the emotion on these honest faces.'  
And the Brandenau lawyer bowed, skipped, stepped back, and took 
snuff, with the air of a man who has found and seized an 
opportunity.

'Well, young gentleman,' said Killian, 'if you will pardon me the 
plainness of calling you a gentleman, many a good day's work you 
have done, I doubt not, but never a better, or one that will be 
better blessed; and whatever, sir, may be your happiness and triumph 
in that high sphere to which you have been called, it will be none 
the worse, sir, for an old man's blessing!'

The scene had almost assumed the proportions of an ovation; and when 
the Prince escaped he had but one thought: to go wherever he was 
most sure of praise.  His conduct at the board of council occurred 
to him as a fair chapter; and this evoked the memory of Gotthold.  
To Gotthold he would go.

Gotthold was in the library as usual, and laid down his pen, a 
little angrily, on Otto's entrance.  'Well,' he said, 'here you 
are.'

'Well,' returned Otto, 'we made a revolution, I believe.'

'It is what I fear,' returned the Doctor.

'How?' said Otto.  'Fear?  Fear is the burnt child.  I have learned 
my strength and the weakness of the others; and I now mean to 
govern.'

Gotthold said nothing, but he looked down and smoothed his chin.

'You disapprove?' cried Otto.  'You are a weather-cock.'

'On the contrary,' replied the Doctor.  'My observation has 
confirmed my fears.  It will not do, Otto, not do.'

'What will not do?' demanded the Prince, with a sickening stab of 
pain.

'None of it,' answered Gotthold.  'You are unfitted for a life of 
action; you lack the stamina, the habit, the restraint, the 
patience.  Your wife is greatly better, vastly better; and though 
she is in bad hands, displays a very different aptitude.  She is a 
woman of affairs; you are - dear boy, you are yourself.  I bid you 
back to your amusements; like a smiling dominie, I give you holidays 
for life.  Yes,' he continued, 'there is a day appointed for all 
when they shall turn again upon their own philosophy.  I had grown 
to disbelieve impartially in all; and if in the atlas of the 
sciences there were two charts I disbelieved in more than all the 
rest, they were politics and morals.  I had a sneaking kindness for 
your vices; as they were negative, they flattered my philosophy; and 
I called them almost virtues.  Well, Otto, I was wrong; I have 
forsworn my sceptical philosophy; and I perceive your faults to be 
unpardonable.  You are unfit to be a Prince, unfit to be a husband.  
And I give you my word, I would rather see a man capably doing evil 
than blundering about good.'

Otto was still silent, in extreme dudgeon.

Presently the Doctor resumed: 'I will take the smaller matter first: 
your conduct to your wife.  You went, I hear, and had an 
explanation.  That may have been right or wrong; I know not; at 
least, you had stirred her temper.  At the council she insults you; 
well, you insult her back - a man to a woman, a husband to his wife, 
in public!  Next upon the back of this, you propose - the story runs 
like wildfire - to recall the power of signature.  Can she ever 
forgive that? a woman - a young woman - ambitious, conscious of 
talents beyond yours?  Never, Otto.  And to sum all, at such a 
crisis in your married life, you get into a window corner with that 
ogling dame von Rosen.  I do not dream that there was any harm; but 
I do say it was an idle disrespect to your wife.  Why, man, the 
woman is not decent.'

'Gotthold,' said Otto, 'I will hear no evil of the Countess.'

'You will certainly hear no good of her,' returned Gotthold; 'and if 
you wish your wife to be the pink of nicety, you should clear your 
court of demi-reputations.'

'The commonplace injustice of a by-word,' Otto cried.  'The 
partiality of sex.  She is a demirep; what then is Gondremark?  Were 
she a man - '

'It would be all one,' retorted Gotthold roughly.  'When I see a 
man, come to years of wisdom, who speaks in double-meanings and is 
the braggart of his vices, I spit on the other side.  "You, my 
friend," say I, "are not even a gentleman."  Well, she's not even a 
lady.'

'She is the best friend I have, and I choose that she shall be 
respected,' Otto said.

'If she is your friend, so much the worse,' replied the Doctor.  'It 
will not stop there.'

'Ah!' cried Otto, 'there is the charity of virtue!  All evil in the 
spotted fruit.  But I can tell you, sir, that you do Madame von 
Rosen prodigal injustice.'

'You can tell me!' said the Doctor shrewdly.  'Have you, tried? have 
you been riding the marches?'

The blood came into Otto's face.

'Ah!' cried Gotthold, 'look at your wife and blush!  There's a wife 
for a man to marry and then lose!  She's a carnation, Otto.  The 
soul is in her eyes.'

'You have changed your note for Seraphina, I perceive,' said Otto.

'Changed it!' cried the Doctor, with a flush.  'Why, when was it 
different?  But I own I admired her at the council.  When she sat 
there silent, tapping with her foot, I admired her as I might a 
hurricane.  Were I one of those who venture upon matrimony, there 
had been the prize to tempt me!  She invites, as Mexico invited 
Cortez; the enterprise is hard, the natives are unfriendly - I 
believe them cruel too - but the metropolis is paved with gold and 
the breeze blows out of paradise.  Yes, I could desire to be that 
conqueror.  But to philander with von Rosen! never!  Senses?  I 
discard them; what are they? - pruritus!  Curiosity?  Reach me my 
Anatomy!'

'To whom do you address yourself?' cried Otto.  'Surely you, of all 
men, know that I love my wife!'

'O, love!' cried Gotthold; 'love is a great word; it is in all the 
dictionaries.  If you had loved, she would have paid you back.  What 
does she ask?  A little ardour!'

'It is hard to love for two,' replied the Prince.

'Hard?  Why, there's the touchstone!  O, I know my poets!' cried the 
Doctor.  'We are but dust and fire, too and to endure life's 
scorching; and love, like the shadow of a great rock, should lend 
shelter and refreshment, not to the lover only, but to his mistress 
and to the children that reward them; and their very friends should 
seek repose in the fringes of that peace.  Love is not love that 
cannot build a home.  And you call it love to grudge and quarrel and 
pick faults?  You call it love to thwart her to her face, and bandy 
insults?  Love!'

'Gotthold, you are unjust.  I was then fighting for my country,' 
said the Prince.

'Ay, and there's the worst of all,' returned the Doctor.  'You could 
not even see that you were wrong; that being where they were, 
retreat was ruin.'

Why, you supported me!' cried Otto.

'I did.  I was a fool like you,' replied Gotthold.  'But now my eyes 
are open.  If you go on as you have started, disgrace this fellow 
Gondremark, and publish the scandal of your divided house, there 
will befall a most abominable thing in Grunewald.  A revolution, 
friend - a revolution.'

'You speak strangely for a red,' said Otto.

'A red republican, but not a revolutionary,' returned the Doctor.  
'An ugly thing is a Grunewalder drunk!  One man alone can save the 
country from this pass, and that is the double-dealer Gondremark, 
with whom I conjure you to make peace.  It will not be you; it never 
can be you:- you, who can do nothing, as your wife said, but trade 
upon your station - you, who spent the hours in begging money!  And 
in God's name, what for?  Why money?  What mystery of idiocy was 
this?'

'It was to no ill end.  It was to buy a farm,' quoth Otto sulkily.

'To buy a farm!' cried Gotthold.  'Buy a farm!'

'Well, what then?' returned Otto. 'I have bought it, if you come to 
that.'

Gotthold fairly bounded on his seat.  'And how that?' he cried.

'How?' repeated Otto, startled.

'Ay, verily, how!' returned the Doctor.  'How came you by the 
money?'

The Prince's countenance darkened.  'That is my affair,' said he.

'You see you are ashamed,' retorted Gotthold.  'And so you bought a 
farm in the hour of our country's need - doubtless to be ready for 
the abdication; and I put it that you stole the funds.  There are 
not three ways of getting money: there are but two: to earn and 
steal.  And now, when you have combined Charles the Fifth and Long-
fingered Tom, you come to me to fortify your vanity!  But I will 
clear my mind upon this matter: until I know the right and wrong of 
the transaction, I put my hand behind my back.  A man may be the 
pitifullest prince; he must be a spotless gentleman.'

The Prince had gotten to his feet, as pale as paper.  Gotthold,' he 
said, 'you drive me beyond bounds.  Beware, sir, beware!'

'Do you threaten me, friend Otto?' asked the Doctor grimly.  'That 
would be a strange conclusion.'

'When have you ever known me use my power in any private animosity?' 
cried Otto.  'To any private man your words were an unpardonable 
insult, but at me you shoot in full security, and I must turn aside 
to compliment you on your plainness.  I must do more than pardon, I 
must admire, because you have faced this - this formidable monarch, 
like a Nathan before David.  You have uprooted an old kindness, sir, 
with an unsparing hand.  You leave me very bare.  My last bond is 
broken; and though I take Heaven to witness that I sought to do the 
right, I have this reward: to find myself alone.  You say I am no 
gentleman; yet the sneers have been upon your side; and though I can 
very well perceive where you have lodged your sympathies, I will 
forbear the taunt.'

'Otto, are you insane?' cried Gotthold, leaping up.  'Because I ask 
you how you came by certain moneys, and because you refuse - '

'Herr von Hohenstockwitz, I have ceased to invite your aid in my 
affairs,' said Otto.  'I have heard all that I desire, and you have 
sufficiently trampled on my vanity.  It may be that I cannot govern, 
it may be that I cannot love - you tell me so with every mark of 
honesty; but God has granted me one virtue, and I can still forgive.  
I forgive you; even in this hour of passion, I can perceive my 
faults and your excuses; and if I desire that in future I may be 
spared your conversation, it is not, sir, from resentment - not 
resentment - but, by Heaven, because no man on earth could endure to 
be so rated.  You have the satisfaction to see your sovereign weep; 
and that person whom you have so often taunted with his happiness 
reduced to the last pitch of solitude and misery.  No, - I will hear 
nothing; I claim the last word, sir, as your Prince; and that last 
word shall be - forgiveness.'

And with that Otto was gone from the apartment, and Doctor Gotthold 
was left alone with the most conflicting sentiments of sorrow, 
remorse, and merriment; walking to and fro before his table, and 
asking himself, with hands uplifted, which of the pair of them was 
most to blame for this unhappy rupture.  Presently, he took from a 
cupboard a bottle of Rhine wine and a goblet of the deep Bohemian 
ruby.  The first glass a little warmed and comforted his bosom; with 
the second he began to look down upon these troubles from a sunny 
mountain; yet a while, and filled with this false comfort and 
contemplating life throughout a golden medium, he owned to himself, 
with a flush, a smile, and a half-pleasurable sigh, that he had been 
somewhat over plain in dealing with his cousin.  'He said the truth, 
too,' added the penitent librarian, 'for in my monkish fashion I 
adore the Princess.'  And then, with a still deepening flush and a 
certain stealth, although he sat all alone in that great gallery, he 
toasted Seraphina to the dregs.





CHAPTER XI - PROVIDENCE VON ROSEN: ACT THE FIRST
SHE BEGUILES THE BARON


AT a sufficiently late hour, or to be more exact, at three in the 
afternoon, Madame von Rosen issued on the world.  She swept 
downstairs and out across the garden, a black mantilla thrown over 
her head, and the long train of her black velvet dress ruthlessly 
sweeping in the dirt.

At the other end of that long garden, and back to back with the 
villa of the Countess, stood the large mansion where the Prime 
Minister transacted his affairs and pleasures.  This distance, which 
was enough for decency by the easy canons of Mittwalden, the 
Countess swiftly traversed, opened a little door with a key, mounted 
a flight of stairs, and entered unceremoniously into Gondremark's 
study.  It was a large and very high apartment; books all about the 
walls, papers on the table, papers on the floor; here and there a 
picture, somewhat scant of drapery; a great fire glowing and flaming 
in the blue tiled hearth; and the daylight streaming through a 
cupola above.  In the midst of this sat the great Baron Gondremark 
in his shirt-sleeves, his business for that day fairly at an end, 
and the hour arrived for relaxation.  His expression, his very 
nature, seemed to have undergone a fundamental change.  Gondremark 
at home appeared the very antipode of Gondremark on duty.  He had an 
air of massive jollity that well became him; grossness and geniality 
sat upon his features; and along with his manners, he had laid aside 
his sly and sinister expression.  He lolled there, sunning his bulk 
before the fire, a noble animal.

'Hey!' he cried.  'At last!'

The Countess stepped into the room in silence, threw herself on a 
chair, and crossed her legs.  In her lace and velvet, with a good 
display of smooth black stocking and of snowy petticoat, and with 
the refined profile of her face and slender plumpness of her body, 
she showed in singular contrast to the big, black, intellectual 
satyr by the fire.

'How often do you send for me?' she cried.  'It is compromising.'

Gondremark laughed.  'Speaking of that,' said he, 'what in the 
devil's name were you about?  You were not home till morning.'

'I was giving alms,' she said.

The Baron again laughed loud and long, for in his shirt-sleeves he 
was a very mirthful creature.  'It is fortunate I am not jealous,' 
he remarked.  'But you know my way: pleasure and liberty go hand in 
hand.  I believe what I believe; it is not much, but I believe it. - 
But now to business.  Have you not read my letter?'

'No,' she said; 'my head ached.'

'Ah, well! then I have news indeed!' cried Gondremark.  'I was mad 
to see you all last night and all this morning: for yesterday 
afternoon I brought my long business to a head; the ship has come 
home; one more dead lift, and I shall cease to fetch and carry for 
the Princess Ratafia.  Yes, 'tis done.  I have the order all in 
Ratafia's hand; I carry it on my heart.  At the hour of twelve to-
night, Prince Featherhead is to be taken in his bed and, like the 
bambino, whipped into a chariot; and by next morning he will command 
a most romantic prospect from the donjon of the Felsenburg.  
Farewell, Featherhead!  The war goes on, the girl is in my hand; I 
have long been indispensable, but now I shall be sole.  I have 
long,' he added exultingly, 'long carried this intrigue upon my 
shoulders, like Samson with the gates of Gaza; now I discharge that 
burthen.'

She had sprung to her feet a little paler.  'Is this true?' she 
cried.

'I tell you a fact,' he asseverated.  'The trick is played.'

'I will never believe it,' she said.  'An order in her own hand?  I 
will never believe it, Heinrich.'

'I swear to you,' said he.

'O, what do you care for oaths - or I either?  What would you swear 
by?  Wine, women, and song?  It is not binding,' she said.  She had 
come quite close up to him and laid her hand upon his arm.  'As for 
the order - no, Heinrich, never!  I will never believe it.  I will 
die ere I believe it.  You have some secret purpose - what, I cannot 
guess - but not one word of it is true.'

'Shall I show it you?' he asked.

'You cannot,' she answered.  'There is no such thing.'

'Incorrigible Sadducee!' he cried.  'Well, I will convert you; you 
shall see the order.'  He moved to a chair where he had thrown his 
coat, and then drawing forth and holding out a paper, 'Read,' said 
he.

She took it greedily, and her eye flashed as she perused it.

'Hey!' cried the Baron, 'there falls a dynasty, and it was I that 
felled it; and I and you inherit!'  He seemed to swell in stature; 
and next moment, with a laugh, he put his hand forward.  Give me the 
dagger,' said he.

But she whisked the paper suddenly behind her back and faced him, 
lowering.  'No, no,' she said.  'You and I have first a point to 
settle.  Do you suppose me blind?  She could never have given that 
paper but to one man, and that man her lover.  Here you stand - her 
lover, her accomplice, her master - O, I well believe it, for I know 
your power.  But what am I?' she cried; 'I, whom you deceive!'

'Jealousy!' cried Gondremark.  'Anna, I would never have believed 
it!  But I declare to you by all that's credible that I am not her 
lover.  I might be, I suppose; but I never yet durst risk the 
declaration.  The chit is so unreal; a mincing doll; she will and 
she will not; there is no counting on her, by God!  And hitherto I 
have had my own way without, and keep the lover in reserve.  And I 
say, Anna,' he added with severity, 'you must break yourself of this 
new fit, my girl; there must be no combustion.  I keep the creature 
under the belief that I adore her; and if she caught a breath of you 
and me, she is such a fool, prude, and dog in the manger, that she 
is capable of spoiling all.'

'All very fine,' returned the lady.  'With whom do you pass your 
days? and which am I to believe, your words or your actions?'

'Anna, the devil take you, are you blind?' cried Gondremark.  'You 
know me.  Am I likely to care for such a preciosa?  'Tis hard that 
we should have been together for so long, and you should still take 
me for a troubadour.  But if there is one thing that I despise and 
deprecate, it is all such figures in Berlin wool.  Give me a human 
woman - like myself.  You are my mate; you were made for me; you 
amuse me like the play.  And what have I to gain that I should 
pretend to you?  If I do not love you, what use are you to me?  Why, 
none.  It is as clear as noonday.'

'Do you love me, Heinrich?' she asked, languishing.  'Do you truly?'

'I tell you,' he cried, 'I love you next after myself.  I should be 
all abroad if I had lost you.'

'Well, then,' said she, folding up the paper and putting it calmly 
in her pocket, 'I will believe you, and I join the plot.  Count upon 
me.  At midnight, did you say?  It is Gordon, I see, that you have 
charged with it.  Excellent; he will stick at nothing - '

Gondremark watched her suspiciously.  'Why do you take the paper?' 
he demanded.  'Give it here.'

'No,' she returned; 'I mean to keep it.  It is I who must prepare 
the stroke; you cannot manage it without me; and to do my best I 
must possess the paper.  Where shall I find Gordon?  In his rooms?'  
She spoke with a rather feverish self-possession.

'Anna,' he said sternly, the black, bilious countenance of his 
palace ROLE taking the place of the more open favour of his hours at 
home, 'I ask you for that paper.  Once, twice, and thrice.'

'Heinrich,' she returned, looking him in the face, 'take care.  I 
will put up with no dictation.'

Both looked dangerous; and the silence lasted for a measurable 
interval of time.  Then she made haste to have the first word; and 
with a laugh that rang clear and honest, 'Do not be a child,' she 
said.  'I wonder at you.  If your assurances are true, you can have 
no reason to mistrust me, nor I to play you false.  The difficulty 
is to get the Prince out of the palace without scandal.  His valets 
are devoted; his chamberlain a slave; and yet one cry might ruin 
all.'

'They must be overpowered,' he said, following her to the new 
ground, 'and disappear along with him.'

'And your whole scheme along with them!' she cried.  'He does not 
take his servants when he goes a-hunting: a child could read the 
truth.  No, no; the plan is idiotic; it must be Ratafia's.  But hear 
me.  You know the Prince worships me?'

'I know,' he said.  'Poor Featherhead, I cross his destiny!'

'Well now,' she continued, 'what if I bring him alone out of the 
palace, to some quiet corner of the Park - the Flying Mercury, for 
instance?  Gordon can be posted in the thicket; the carriage wait 
behind the temple; not a cry, not a scuffle, not a footfall; simply, 
the Prince vanishes! - What do you say?  Am I an able ally?  Are my 
BEAUX YUEX of service?  Ah, Heinrich, do not lose your Anna! - she 
has power!'

He struck with his open hand upon the chimney.  'Witch!' he said, 
'there is not your match for devilry in Europe.  Service! the thing 
runs on wheels.'

'Kiss me, then, and let me go.  I must not miss my Featherhead,' she 
said.

'Stay, stay,' said the Baron; 'not so fast.  I wish, upon my soul, 
that I could trust you; but you are, out and in, so whimsical a 
devil that I dare not.  Hang it, Anna, no; it's not possible!'

'You doubt me, Heinrich?' she cried.

'Doubt is not the word,' said he.  'I know you.  Once you were clear 
of me with that paper in your pocket, who knows what you would do 
with it? - not you, at least - nor I.  You see,' he added, shaking 
his head paternally upon the Countess, 'you are as vicious as a 
monkey.'

'I swear to you,' she cried, 'by my salvation . . . '

'I have no curiosity to hear you swearing,' said the Baron.

'You think that I have no religion?  You suppose me destitute of 
honour.  Well,' she said, 'see here: I will not argue, but I tell 
you once for all: leave me this order, and the Prince shall be 
arrested - take it from me, and, as certain as I speak, I will upset 
the coach.  Trust me, or fear me: take your choice.'  And she 
offered him the paper.

The Baron, in a great contention of mind, stood irresolute, weighing 
the two dangers.  Once his hand advanced, then dropped.  'Well,' he 
said, 'since trust is what you call it . . .'

'No more,' she interrupted, 'Do not spoil your attitude.  And now 
since you have behaved like a good sort of fellow in the dark, I 
will condescend to tell you why.  I go to the palace to arrange with 
Gordon; but how is Gordon to obey me?  And how can I foresee the 
hours?  It may be midnight; ay, and it may be nightfall; all's a 
chance; and to act, I must be free and hold the strings of the 
adventure.  And now,' she cried, 'your Vivien goes.  Dub me your 
knight!'  And she held out her arms and smiled upon him radiant.

'Well,' he said, when he had kissed her, 'every man must have his 
folly; I thank God mine is no worse.  Off with you!  I have given a 
child a squib.'




CHAPTER XII -  PROVIDENCE VON ROSEN: ACT THE SECOND
SHE INFORMS THE PRINCE


IT was the first impulse of Madame von Rosen to return to her own 
villa and revise her toilette.  Whatever else should come of this 
adventure, it was her firm design to pay a visit to the Princess.  
And before that woman, so little beloved, the Countess would appear 
at no disadvantage.  It was the work of minutes.  Von Rosen had the 
captain's eye in matters of the toilette; she was none of those who 
hang in Fabian helplessness among their finery and, after hours, 
come forth upon the world as dowdies.  A glance, a loosened curl, a 
studied and admired disorder in the hair, a bit of lace, a touch of 
colour, a yellow rose in the bosom; and the instant picture was 
complete.

'That will do,' she said.  'Bid my carriage follow me to the palace.  
In half an hour it should be there in waiting.'

The night was beginning to fall and the shops to shine with lamps 
along the tree-beshadowed thorough-fares of Otto's capital, when the 
Countess started on her high emprise.  She was jocund at heart; 
pleasure and interest had winged her beauty, and she knew it.  She 
paused before the glowing jeweller's; she remarked and praised a 
costume in the milliner's window; and when she reached the lime-tree 
walk, with its high, umbrageous arches and stir of passers-by in the 
dim alleys, she took her place upon a bench and began to dally with 
the pleasures of the hour.  It was cold, but she did not feel it, 
being warm within; her thoughts, in that dark corner, shone like the 
gold and rubies at the jewellers; her ears, which heard the brushing 
of so many footfalls, transposed it into music.

What was she to do?  She held the paper by which all depended.  Otto 
and Gondremark and Ratafia, and the state itself, hung light in her 
balances, as light as dust; her little finger laid in either scale 
would set all flying: and she hugged herself upon her huge 
preponderance, and then laughed aloud to think how giddily it might 
be used.  The vertigo of omnipotence, the disease of Caesars, shook 
her reason.  'O the mad world!' she thought, and laughed aloud in 
exultation.

A child, finger in mouth, had paused a little way from where she 
sat, and stared with cloudy interest upon this laughing lady.  She 
called it nearer; but the child hung back.  Instantly, with that 
curious passion which you may see any woman in the world display, on 
the most odd occasions, for a similar end, the Countess bent herself 
with singleness of mind to overcome this diffidence; and presently, 
sure enough, the child was seated on her knee, thumbing and 
glowering at her watch.

'If you had a clay bear and a china monkey,' asked Von Rosen, 'which 
would you prefer to break?'

'But I have neither,' said the child.

'Well,' she said, 'here is a bright florin, with which you may 
purchase both the one and the other; and I shall give it you at 
once, if you will answer my question.  The clay bear or the china 
monkey - come?'

But the unbreeched soothsayer only stared upon the florin with big 
eyes; the oracle could not be persuaded to reply; and the Countess 
kissed him lightly, gave him the florin, set him down upon the path, 
and resumed her way with swinging and elastic gait.

'Which shall I break?' she wondered; and she passed her hand with 
delight among the careful disarrangement of her locks.  'Which?' and 
she consulted heaven with her bright eyes.  'Do I love both or 
neither?  A little - passionately - not at all?  Both or neither - 
both, I believe; but at least I will make hay of Ratafia.'

By the time she had passed the iron gates, mounted the drive, and 
set her foot upon the broad flagged terrace, the night had come 
completely; the palace front was thick with lighted windows; and 
along the balustrade, the lamp on every twentieth baluster shone 
clear.  A few withered tracks of sunset, amber and glow-worm green, 
still lingered in the western sky; and she paused once again to 
watch them fading.

'And to think,' she said, 'that here am I - destiny embodied, a 
norn, a fate, a providence - and have no guess upon which side I 
shall declare myself!  What other woman in my place would not be 
prejudiced, and think herself committed?  But, thank Heaven!  I was 
born just!'  Otto's windows were bright among the rest, and she 
looked on them with rising tenderness.  'How does it feel to be 
deserted?' she thought.  'Poor dear fool!  The girl deserves that he 
should see this order.'

Without more delay, she passed into the palace and asked for an 
audience of Prince Otto.  The Prince, she was told, was in his own 
apartment, and desired to be private.  She sent her name.  A man 
presently returned with word that the Prince tendered his apologies, 
but could see no one.  'Then I will write,' she said, and scribbled 
a few lines alleging urgency of life and death.  'Help me, my 
Prince,' she added; 'none but you can help me.'  This time the 
messenger returned more speedily, and begged the Countess to follow 
him: the Prince was graciously pleased to receive the Frau Grafin 
von Rosen.

Otto sat by the fire in his large armoury, weapons faintly 
glittering all about him in the changeful light.  His face was 
disfigured by the marks of weeping; he looked sour and sad; nor did 
he rise to greet his visitor, but bowed, and bade the man begone.  
That kind of general tenderness which served the Countess for both 
heart and conscience, sharply smote her at this spectacle of grief 
and weakness; she began immediately to enter into the spirit of her 
part; and as soon as they were alone, taking one step forward and 
with a magnificent gesture - 'Up!' she cried.

'Madame von Rosen,' replied Otto dully, 'you have used strong words.  
You speak of life and death.  Pray, madam, who is threatened?  Who 
is there,' he added bitterly, 'so destitute that even Otto of 
Grunewald can assist him?'

'First learn,' said she, 'the names of the conspirators; the 
Princess and the Baron Gondremark.  Can you not guess the rest?'  
And then, as he maintained his silence - 'You!' she cried, pointing 
at him with her finger.  "Tis you they threaten!  Your rascal and 
mine have laid their heads together and condemned you.  But they 
reckoned without you and me.  We make a PARTIE CARREE, Prince, in 
love and politics.  They lead an ace, but we shall trump it.  Come, 
partner, shall I draw my card?'

'Madam,' he said, 'explain yourself.  Indeed I fail to comprehend.'

'See, then,' said she; and handed him the order.

He took it, looked upon it with a start; and then, still without 
speech, he put his hand before his face.  She waited for a word in 
vain.

'What!' she cried, 'do you take the thing down-heartedly?  As well 
seek wine in a milk-pail as love in that girl's heart!  Be done with 
this, and be a man.  After the league of the lions, let us have a 
conspiracy of mice, and pull this piece of machinery to ground.  You 
were brisk enough last night when nothing was at stake and all was 
frolic.  Well, here is better sport; here is life indeed.'

He got to his feet with some alacrity, and his face, which was a 
little flushed, bore the marks of resolution.

'Madame von Rosen,' said he, 'I am neither unconscious nor 
ungrateful; this is the true continuation of your friendship; but I 
see that I must disappoint your expectations.  You seem to expect 
from me some effort of resistance; but why should I resist?  I have 
not much to gain; and now that I have read this paper, and the last 
of a fool's paradise is shattered, it would be hyperbolical to speak 
of loss in the same breath with Otto of Grunewald.  I have no party, 
no policy; no pride, nor anything to be proud of.  For what benefit 
or principle under Heaven do you expect me to contend?  Or would you 
have me bite and scratch like a trapped weasel?  No, madam; signify 
to those who sent you my readiness to go.  I would at least avoid a 
scandal.'

'You go? - of your own will, you go?' she cried.

'I cannot say so much, perhaps,' he answered; 'but I go with good 
alacrity.  I have desired a change some time; behold one offered me!  
Shall I refuse?  Thank God, I am not so destitute of humour as to 
make a tragedy of such a farce.'  He flicked the order on the table.  
'You may signify my readiness,' he added grandly.

'Ah,' she said, 'you are more angry than you own.'

'I, madam? angry?' he cried.  'You rave!  I have no cause for anger.  
In every way I have been taught my weakness, my instability, and my 
unfitness for the world.  I am a plexus of weaknesses, an impotent 
Prince, a doubtful gentleman; and you yourself, indulgent as you 
are, have twice reproved my levity.  And shall I be angry?  I may 
feel the unkindness, but I have sufficient honesty of mind to see 
the reasons of this COUP D'ETAT.'

'From whom have you got this?' she cried in wonder.  'You think you 
have not behaved well?  My Prince, were you not young and handsome, 
I should detest you for your virtues.  You push them to the verge of 
commonplace.  And this ingratitude - '

'Understand me, Madame von Rosen,' returned the Prince, flushing a 
little darker, 'there can be here no talk of gratitude, none of 
pride.  You are here, by what circumstance I know not, but doubtless 
led by your kindness, mixed up in what regards my family alone.  You 
have no knowledge what my wife, your sovereign, may have suffered; 
it is not for you - no, nor for me - to judge.  I own myself in 
fault; and were it otherwise, a man were a very empty boaster who 
should talk of love and start before a small humiliation.  It is in 
all the copybooks that one should die to please his lady-love; and 
shall a man not go to prison?'

'Love?  And what has love to do with being sent to gaol?' exclaimed 
the Countess, appealing to the walls and roof.  'Heaven knows I 
think as much of love as any one; my life would prove it; but I 
admit no love, at least for a man, that is not equally returned.  
The rest is moonshine.'

'I think of love more absolutely, madam, though I am certain no more 
tenderly, than a lady to whom I am indebted for such kindnesses,' 
returned the Prince.  'But this is unavailing.  We are not here to 
hold a court of troubadours.'

'Still,' she replied, 'there is one thing you forget.  If she 
conspires with Gondremark against your liberty, she may conspire 
with him against your honour also.'

'My honour?' he repeated.  'For a woman, you surprise me.  If I have 
failed to gain her love or play my part of husband, what right is 
left me? or what honour can remain in such a scene of defeat?  No 
honour that I recognise.  I am become a stranger.  If my wife no 
longer loves me, I will go to prison, since she wills it; if she 
love another, where should I be more in place? or whose fault is it 
but mine?  You speak, Madame von Rosen, like too many women, with a 
man's tongue.  Had I myself fallen into temptation (as, Heaven 
knows, I might) I should have trembled, but still hoped and asked 
for her forgiveness; and yet mine had been a treason in the teeth of 
love.  But let me tell you, madam,' he pursued, with rising 
irritation, 'where a husband by futility, facility, and ill-timed 
humours has outwearied his wife's patience, I will suffer neither 
man nor woman to misjudge her.  She is free; the man has been found 
wanting.'

'Because she loves you not?' the Countess cried.  'You know she is 
incapable of such a feeling.'

'Rather, it was I who was born incapable of inspiring it,' said 
Otto.

Madame von Rosen broke into sudden laughter.  'Fool,' she cried, 'I 
am in love with you myself!'

'Ah, madam, you are most compassionate,' the Prince retorted, 
smiling.  'But this is waste debate.  I know my purpose.  Perhaps, 
to equal you in frankness, I know and embrace my advantage.  I am 
not without the spirit of adventure.  I am in a false position - so 
recognised by public acclamation: do you grudge me, then, my issue?'

'If your mind is made up, why should I dissuade you?' said the 
Countess.  'I own, with a bare face, I am the gainer.  Go, you take 
my heart with you, or more of it than I desire; I shall not sleep at 
night for thinking of your misery.  But do not be afraid; I would 
not spoil you, you are such a fool and hero.'

'Alas! madam,' cried the Prince, 'and your unlucky money!  I did 
amiss to take it, but you are a wonderful persuader.  And I thank 
God, I can still offer you the fair equivalent.'  He took some 
papers from the chimney.  'Here, madam, are the title-deeds,' he 
said; 'where I am going, they can certainly be of no use to me, and 
I have now no other hope of making up to you your kindness.  You 
made the loan without formality, obeying your kind heart.  The parts 
are somewhat changed; the sun of this Prince of Grunewald is upon 
the point of setting; and I know you better than to doubt you will 
once more waive ceremony, and accept the best that he can give you.  
If I may look for any pleasure in the coming time, it will be to 
remember that the peasant is secure, and my most generous friend no 
loser.'

'Do you not understand my odious position?' cried the Countess.  
'Dear Prince, it is upon your fall that I begin my fortune.'

'It was the more like you to tempt me to resistance,' returned Otto.  
'But this cannot alter our relations; and I must, for the last time, 
lay my commands upon you in the character of Prince.'  And with his 
loftiest dignity, he forced the deeds on her acceptance.

'I hate the very touch of them,' she cried.

There followed upon this a little silence.  'At what time,' resumed 
Otto, '(if indeed you know) am I to be arrested?'

'Your Highness, when you please!' exclaimed the Countess.  'Or, if 
you choose to tear that paper, never!'

'I would rather it were done quickly,' said the Prince.  'I shall 
take but time to leave a letter for the Princess.'

'Well,' said the Countess, 'I have advised you to resist; at the 
same time, if you intend to be dumb before your shearers, I must say 
that I ought to set about arranging your arrest.  I offered' - she 
hesitated - 'I offered to manage it, intending, my dear friend - 
intending, upon my soul, to be of use to you.  Well, if you will not 
profit by my goodwill, then be of use to me; and as soon as ever you 
feel ready, go to the Flying Mercury where we met last night.  It 
will be none the worse for you; and to make it quite plain, it will 
be better for the rest of us.'

'Dear madam, certainly,' said Otto.  'If I am prepared for the chief 
evil, I shall not quarrel with details.  Go, then, with my best 
gratitude; and when I have written a few lines of leave-taking, I 
shall immediately hasten to keep tryst.  To-night I shall not meet 
so dangerous a cavalier,' he added, with a smiling gallantry.

As soon as Madame von Rosen was gone, he made a great call upon his 
self-command.  He was face to face with a miserable passage where, 
if it were possible, he desired to carry himself with dignity.  As 
to the main fact, he never swerved or faltered; he had come so 
heart-sick and so cruelly humiliated from his talk with Gotthold, 
that he embraced the notion of imprisonment with something bordering 
on relief.  Here was, at least, a step which he thought blameless; 
here was a way out of his troubles.  He sat down to write to 
Seraphina; and his anger blazed.  The tale of his forbearances 
mounted, in his eyes, to something monstrous; still more monstrous, 
the coldness, egoism, and cruelty that had required and thus 
requited them.  The pen which he had taken shook in his hand.  He 
was amazed to find his resignation fled, but it was gone beyond his 
recall.  In a few white-hot words, he bade adieu, dubbing 
desperation by the name of love, and calling his wrath forgiveness; 
then he cast but one look of leave-taking on the place that had been 
his for so long and was now to be his no longer; and hurried forth - 
love's prisoner - or pride's.

He took that private passage which he had trodden so often in less 
momentous hours.  The porter let him out; and the bountiful, cold 
air of the night and the pure glory of the stars received him on the 
threshold.  He looked round him, breathing deep of earth's plain 
fragrance; he looked up into the great array of heaven, and was 
quieted.  His little turgid life dwindled to its true proportions; 
and he saw himself (that great flame-hearted martyr!) stand like a 
speck under the cool cupola of the night.  Thus he felt his careless 
injuries already soothed; the live air of out-of-doors, the quiet of 
the world, as if by their silent music, sobering and dwarfing his 
emotions.

'Well, I forgive her,' he said.  'If it be of any use to her, I 
forgive.'

And with brisk steps he crossed the garden, issued upon the Park, 
and came to the Flying Mercury.  A dark figure moved forward from 
the shadow of the pedestal.

'I have to ask your pardon, sir,' a voice observed, 'but if I am 
right in taking you for the Prince, I was given to understand that 
you would be prepared to meet me.'

'Herr Gordon, I believe?' said Otto.

'Herr Oberst Gordon,' replied that officer.  'This is rather a 
ticklish business for a man to be embarked in; and to find that all 
is to go pleasantly is a great relief to me.  The carriage is at 
hand; shall I have the honour of following your Highness?'

'Colonel,' said the Prince, 'I have now come to that happy moment of 
my life when I have orders to receive but none to give.'

'A most philosophical remark,' returned the Colonel.  'Begad, a very 
pertinent remark! it might be Plutarch.  I am not a drop's blood to 
your Highness, or indeed to any one in this principality; or else I 
should dislike my orders.  But as it is, and since there is nothing 
unnatural or unbecoming on my side, and your Highness takes it in 
good part, I begin to believe we may have a capital time together, 
sir - a capital time.  For a gaoler is only a fellow-captive.'

'May I inquire, Herr Gordon,' asked Otto, 'what led you to accept 
this dangerous and I would fain hope thankless office?'

'Very natural, I am sure,' replied the officer of fortune.  'My pay 
is, in the meanwhile, doubled.'

'Well, sir, I will not presume to criticise,' returned the Prince.  
'And I perceive the carriage.'

Sure enough, at the intersection of two alleys of the Park, a coach 
and four, conspicuous by its lanterns, stood in waiting.  And a 
little way off about a score of lancers were drawn up under the 
shadow of the trees.




CHAPTER XIII - PROVIDENCE VON ROSEN: ACT THE THIRD
SHE ENLIGHTENS SERAPHINA


WHEN Madame von Rosen left the Prince, she hurried straight to 
Colonel Gordon; and not content with directing the arrangements, she 
had herself accompanied the soldier of fortune to the Flying 
Mercury.  The Colonel gave her his arm, and the talk between this 
pair of conspirators ran high and lively.  The Countess, indeed, was 
in a whirl of pleasure and excitement; her tongue stumbled upon 
laughter, her eyes shone, the colour that was usually wanting now 
perfected her face.  It would have taken little more to bring Gordon 
to her feet - or so, at least, she believed, disdaining the idea.

Hidden among some lilac bushes, she enjoyed the great decorum of the 
arrest, and heard the dialogue of the two men die away along the 
path.  Soon after, the rolling of a carriage and the beat of hoofs 
arose in the still air of the night, and passed speedily farther and 
fainter into silence.  The Prince was gone.

Madame von Rosen consulted her watch.  She had still, she thought, 
time enough for the tit-bit of her evening; and hurrying to the 
palace, winged by the fear of Gondremark's arrival, she sent her 
name and a pressing request for a reception to the Princess 
Seraphina.  As the Countess von Rosen unqualified, she was sure to 
be refused; but as an emissary of the Baron's, for so she chose to 
style herself, she gained immediate entry.

The Princess sat alone at table, making a feint of dining.  Her 
cheeks were mottled, her eyes heavy; she had neither slept nor 
eaten; even her dress had been neglected.  In short, she was out of 
health, out of looks, out of heart, and hag-ridden by her 
conscience.  The Countess drew a swift comparison, and shone 
brighter in beauty.

'You come, madam, DE LA PART DE MONSIEUR LE BARON,' drawled the 
Princess.  'Be seated!  What have you to say?'

'To say?' repeated Madame von Rosen, 'O, much to say!  Much to say 
that I would rather not, and much to leave unsaid that I would 
rather say.  For I am like St. Paul, your Highness, and always wish 
to do the things I should not.  Well! to be categorical - that is 
the word? - I took the Prince your order.  He could not credit his 
senses.  "Ah," he cried "dear Madame von Rosen, it is not possible - 
it cannot be I must hear it from your lips.  My wife is a poor girl 
misled, she is only silly, she is not cruel."  "MON PRINCE," said I, 
"a girl - and therefore cruel; youth kills flies." - He had such 
pain to understand it!'

'Madame von Rosen,' said the Princess, in most steadfast tones, but 
with a rose of anger in her face, 'who sent you here, and for what 
purpose?  Tell your errand.'

'O, madam, I believe you understand me very well,' returned von 
Rosen.  'I have not your philosophy.  I wear my heart upon my 
sleeve, excuse the indecency!  It is a very little one,' she 
laughed, 'and I so often change the sleeve!'

'Am I to understand the Prince has been arrested?' asked the 
Princess, rising.

'While you sat there dining!' cried the Countess, still nonchalantly 
seated.

'You have discharged your errand,' was the reply; 'I will not detain 
you.'

'O no, madam,' said the Countess, 'with your permission, I have not 
yet done.  I have borne much this evening in your service.  I have 
suffered.  I was made to suffer in your service.'  She unfolded her 
fan as she spoke.  Quick as her pulses beat, the fan waved 
languidly.  She betrayed her emotion only by the brightness of her 
eyes and face, and by the almost insolent triumph with which she 
looked down upon the Princess.  There were old scores of rivalry 
between them in more than one field; so at least von Rosen felt; and 
now she was to have her hour of victory in them all.

'You are no servant, Madame von Rosen, of mine,' said Seraphina.

'No, madam, indeed,' returned the Countess; 'but we both serve the 
same person, as you know - or if you do not, then I have the 
pleasure of informing you.  Your conduct is so light - so light,' 
she repeated, the fan wavering higher like a butterfly, 'that 
perhaps you do not truly understand.'  The Countess rolled her fan 
together, laid it in her lap, and rose to a less languorous 
position.  'Indeed,' she continued, 'I should be sorry to see any 
young woman in your situation.  You began with every advantage - 
birth, a suitable marriage - quite pretty too - and see what you 
have come to!  My poor girl, to think of it!  But there is nothing 
that does so much harm,' observed the Countess finely, 'as giddiness 
of mind.'  And she once more unfurled the fan, and approvingly 
fanned herself.

'I will no longer permit you to forget yourself,' cried Seraphina.  
'I think you are mad.'

'Not mad,' returned von Rosen.  'Sane enough to know you dare not 
break with me to-night, and to profit by the knowledge.  I left my 
poor, pretty Prince Charming crying his eyes out for a wooden doll.  
My heart is soft; I love my pretty Prince; you will never understand 
it, but I long to give my Prince his doll, dry his poor eyes, and 
send him off happy.  O, you immature fool!' the Countess cried, 
rising to her feet, and pointing at the Princess the closed fan that 
now began to tremble in her hand.  'O wooden doll!' she cried, 'have 
you a heart, or blood, of any nature?  This is a man, child - a man 
who loves you.  O, it will not happen twice! it is not common; 
beautiful and clever women look in vain for it.  And you, you 
pitiful schoolgirl, tread this jewel under foot! you, stupid with 
your vanity!  Before you try to govern kingdoms, you should first be 
able to behave yourself at home; home is the woman's kingdom.'  She 
paused and laughed a little, strangely to hear and look upon.  'I 
will tell you one of the things,' she said, 'that were to stay 
unspoken.  Von Rosen is a better women than you, my Princess, though 
you will never have the pain of understanding it; and when I took 
the Prince your order, and looked upon his face, my soul was melted 
- O, I am frank - here, within my arms, I offered him repose!'  She 
advanced a step superbly as she spoke, with outstretched arms; and 
Seraphina shrank.  'Do not be alarmed!' the Countess cried; 'I am 
not offering that hermitage to you; in all the world there is but 
one who wants to, and him you have dismissed!  "If it will give her 
pleasure I should wear the martyr's crown," he cried, "I will 
embrace the thorns."  I tell you - I am quite frank - I put the 
order in his power and begged him to resist.  You, who have betrayed 
your husband, may betray me to Gondremark; my Prince would betray no 
one.  Understand it plainly,' she cried, ''tis of his pure 
forbearance that you sit there; he had the power - I gave it him - 
to change the parts; and he refused, and went to prison in your 
place.'