Books: The Puppet Crown

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Only two candles burned on the mantel-piece. The library was a
room apart from the festivities. A soft, rose-colored darkness
pervaded the room. Presently a darker shadow tiptoed over the
threshold. He turned, and the shadow approached. Madame's gray
eyes, full of lambent fires, looked into his own.

"I was seeking you," she said. The jewels in her hair threw a
kind of halo above her head.

"Have I the happiness to be necessary to you?" he asked.

"You have not been enjoying yourself."

"No, Madame; my conscience is, unhappily, too green." He turned
to the window again for fear he would lose control of himself.

"I have a confession to make to you," she said humbly. How broad
his shoulders were, was her thought.

"It can not concern me," he replied.

"How?"

"There is only one confession which I care to hear. You made it
once, though you are not willing to repeat it. But I have your
word, Sylvia; I am content. Not all the world could make me
believe that you would willingly retract that word."

Her name, for the first time coming from his lips, caused her to
start. She sent him a penetrating glance, but it broke on a face
immobile as marble.

"I do not recollect granting you permission to use my given name,"
she said.

"O, that was before the world. But alone, alone as we are, you
and I, it is different." The smile which accompanied these words
was frankness itself, but it did not deceive Madame, who read
his eyes too well. "Ali, but the crumbs you give this love of
mine are so few!" "You are the only man in the world permitted
to avow love to me. You have kissed my hand."

"A privilege which seems extended to all."

Madame colored, but there was not light enough for him to
perceive it.

"The , hand you kissed is the hand of the woman; others kiss it
to pay homage. Monsieur, 'forgive me for having deceived you,
you were so easy to deceive." His eyes met hers steadily.

"I am not Madame simply. I am Stephonia Sylvia Auersperg; the name
I assumed was my mother's." His lack of surprise alarmed her.

"I am well aware of that," he said. "You are the duchess."

Something in his tone warned her of a crisis, and she put forth
her cunning to avert it. "And. you-you will not love me less?"
her voice vibrant as the string of a viol. "I am a princess, but
yet a woman. In me there are two, the woman and the princess.
The princess is proud and ambitious; to gain her ends she stops
at nothing. As a princess she may stoop to trickery and deceit,
and step back untouched. But the woman-ah, well; for this
fortnight I have been most of all the woman."

"And all this to me-is a preamble to my dismissal, since my
promise remains unfulfilled? Madame, do not think that because
fate has willed that my promise should become void, that my
conscience acquits me of dishonor. For love of you I have thrown
honor to the winds. But do I regret it? No. For I am mad, and
being mad, I am not capable of reason. I have broken all those
ties which bind a man's respect to himself. I have burned all
bridges, but I laugh at that. It is only with the knowledge that
your love is mine that I can hold high my head.

"As the princess in you is proud, so is the man in me. A
princess? That is nothing; I love you. Were you the empress of
all the Russias, the most unapproachable woman in the world, I
should not hesitate to profess my love, to find some means of
declaring it to you. I love you. To what further depths can I
fall to prove it?" Again he sought the window, and leaned
heavily on the sill. He waited, as a man waits for an expected
blow.

As she listened a delicious sensation swept through her heart, a
sensation elusive and intangible. She surrendered without
question. At this moment the Eve in her evaded all questions.
Here was a man. The mood which seized her was as novel as this
love which asked nothing but love, and the willingness to pay
any price; and the desire to test both mood and love to their
full strength was irresistible. She was loved for herself alone;
hitherto men had loved the woman less and the princess more. To
surrender to both mood and love, if only for an hour or a day,
to see to what length this man would go at a sign from her.

He was almost her equal in birth; his house was nearly if not
quite as old and honored as her own; in his world he stood as
high as she stood in hers. She had never committed an
indiscretion; passion had never swayed her; until now she had
lived by calculation. As she looked at him, she knew that in all
her wide demesne no soldier could stand before him and look
straight into his eyes. So deep and honest a book it was, so
easily readable, that she must turn to its final pages. Love
him? No. Be his wife? No. She recognized that it was the feline
instinct to play which dominated her. Consequences? Therein lay
the charm of it.

"Patience, Monsieur," she said. "Did I promise to be your wife?
Did I say that I loved you? ~Eh, bien~, the woman, not the
princess, made those vows. I am mistress not only of my duchy,
but of my heart." She ceased and regarded him with watchful eves.
He did not turn. "Look at me, John!" The voice was of such
winning sweetness that St. Anthony himself, had he heard it,
must have turned. "Look at me and see if I am more a princess
than a woman."

He wheeled swiftly. She was leaning toward him, her face was
upturned. No jewel in her hair was half so lustrous as her eyes.
From the threaded ruddy ore of her hair rose a perfume like the
fabulous myrrhs of Olympus. Her lips were a cup of wine, and her
eyes bade him drink, and the taste of that wine haunted him as
long as he lived. He made as though to drain the cup, but Madame
pushed down his arms, uttered a low, puzzled laugh, and vanished
from the room. He was lost! He knew it; yet he did not care. He
threw out his arms, dropped them, and settled his shoulders. A
smile, a warm, contented smile, came into his face and dwelt
there. For another such kiss he would have bartered eternity.

And Madame? Who can say?

CHAPTER XXII

IN WHICH MAURICE RECURS TO OFFENBACH

Midnight; the music had ceased, and the yellow and scarlet
lanterns had been plucked from the autumnal hangings. The
laughing, smiling, dancing women, like so many Cinderellas, had
disappeared, and with them the sparkle of jewels; and the
gallant officers had ridden away to the jingle of bit and spur.
Throughout the courtly revel all faces had revealed, besides the
happiness and lightness of spirit, a suppressed eagerness for
something yet to come, an event surpassing any they had yet
known.

Promptly at midnight Madame herself had dropped the curtains on
the gay scene because she had urgent need of all her military
household at dawn, when a picture, far different from that which
had just been painted, was to be limned on the broad canvas of
her dreams. Darkness and quiet had fallen on the castle, and the
gray moon film lay on terrace and turret and tile.

In the guardroom, Maurice, his hands and feet still in pressing
cords, dozed in his chair. He had ceased to combat drowsiness.
He was worn out with his long ride, together with the chase of
the night before; and since a trooper had relieved his mouth of
the scarf so that he could breathe, he cared not what the future
held, if only he might sleep. It took him a long time to arrive
at the angle of comfort; this accomplished, he drifted into
smooth waters. The troopers who constituted his guard played
cards at a long table, in the center of which were stuck half a
dozen bayonets, which served as candlesticks. They laughed
loudly, thumped the board, and sometimes sang. No one bothered
himself about the prisoner, who might have slept till the crack
of doom, as far as they were concerned.

Shortly before the new hour struck, the door opened and shut. A
trooper shook the sleeper by the sleeve. Maurice awoke with a
start and gazed about, blinking his eyes. Before him he
discovered Madame the duchess, Fitzgerald and Mollendorf, behind
whom stood the Voiture-verse of a countess. The languor forsook
him and he pulled himself together and sat as upright as his
bonds would permit him. Something interesting was about to take
place.

Madame made a gesture which the troopers comprehended, and they
departed. Fitzgerald, with gloomy eyes, folded his arms across
his breast, and with one hand curled and uncurled the drooping
ends of his mustache; the Colonel frowned and rubbed the gray
bristles on his upper lip; the countess twisted and untwisted
her handkerchief; Madame alone evinced no agitation, unless the
perpendicular line above her nose could have been a sign of such.
This lengthened and deepened as her glance met the prisoner's.

He eyed them all with an indifference which was tinctured with
contempt and amusement.

"Well, Monsieur Carewe," said Madame, coldly, "what have you to
say?"

"A number of things, Madame," he answered, in a tone which
bordered the insolent; "only they would not be quite proper for
you to hear."

The Colonel's hand slid from his lip over his mouth; he shuffled
his feet and stared at the bayonets and the grease spots on the
table.

"Carewe," said Fitzgerald, endeavoring to speak calmly, "you
have broken your word to me as a gentleman and you have lied to me."

The reply was an expressive monosyllable, "O!"

"Do you deny it?" demanded the Englishman.

"Deny what?" asked Maurice.

"The archbishop," said Madame, "assumed the aggressive last
night. To be aggressive one must possess strength. Monsieur, how
much did he pay for those consols? Come, tell me; was he
liberal? It is evident that you are not a man of business. I
should have been willing to pay as much as a hundred thousand
crowns. Come; acknowledge that you have made a bad stroke." She
bent her head to one side, and a derisive smile lifted the
corners of her lips.

A dull red flooded the prisoner's cheeks. "I do not understand you."

"You lie!" Fitzgerald stepped closer and his hands closed
menacingly.

"Thank you," said Maurice, "thank you. But why not complete the
melodrama by striking, since you have doubled your fists?"

Fitzgerald glared at him.

"Monsieur," interposed the countess, "do not forget that you are
a gentleman; Monsieur Carewe's hands are tied."

"Unfortunately," observed Maurice.

Madame looked curiously at the countess, while Fitzgerald drew
back to the table and rested on it.

"I can not comprehend how you dared return," Madame resumed.
"One who watches over my affairs has informed me of your
dishonorable act."

"What do you call a dishonorable act?" Maurice inquired quietly.

"One who breaks his sacred promise!" quickly.

The prisoner laughed maliciously. Madame had answered the
question as he hoped she would. "Chickens come home to roost.
What do you say to that, my lord?" to the Englishman.

This time it was not the prisoner's cheeks which reddened. Even
Madame was forced to look away, for if this reply touched the
Englishman it certainly touched her as deeply. Incidentally, she
was asking herself why she had permitted the Englishman to
possess her lips, hers, which no man save her father had ever
possessed before. A kiss, that was all it had been, yet the
memory of it was persistent, annoying, embarrassing. In the
spirit of play--a spirit whose origin mystified her--she had
given the man something which she never could regain, a particle
of her pride.

Besides, this was not all; she had in that moment given up her
right to laugh at him when the time came; now she would not be
able to laugh. She regretted the folly, and bit her lip at the
thought of it. Consequences she had laughed at; now their
possibilities disturbed her. She had been guilty of an
indiscretion. The fact that the Englishman had ruined himself at
her beck did not enter her mind. The hour for that had not yet
arrived.

Seeing that his neat barb had left them all without answer,
Maurice said: "Doubtless the informant who watches over your
interests and various other interests of which you have no
inkling, was the late Colonel Beauvais? For my part, I wish it
was the late Beauvais in the sense in which we refer to the
departed ones. But let us give him his true name--Prince Konrad,
the last of the Walmodens, a cashiered gamester."

Only Fitzgerald showed any surprise. Maurice once saw that the
others were in the secret. They knew the Colonel. Did they know
why he was in Bleiberg? Let them find it out for themselves. He
would not lift a finger to aid them. He leaned back and yawned.

"Pardon me," he said, with mock politeness, "but my hands are
tied, and the truth is, I am sleepy."

"Count," said Madame, "release him. He will be too well guarded
to fear his escaping."

The Colonel performed this service with alacrity. He honestly
admired the young fellow who so seldom lost his temper. Besides,
he had a sneaking idea that the lad was being unjustly accused.

Maurice got up and stretched himself. He rubbed his wrists, then
sat down and waited for the comedy to proceed.

"So you confess," said Madame, "that you sold the consols to the
archbishop?"

"I, confess?" Maurice screwed up his lips and began to whistle
softly:

"Voici le sabre de mon Pere."

"You deny, then?" Madame was fast losing patience, a grave
mistake when one is dealing with a banterer.

Maurice changed the tune:

"J'aime les militaires, Leur uniforme coquet, Leur moustache et
leur plumet--"

"Answer!" with a stamp of the foot.

"Je sais ce que je voudrais, Je voudrais etre cantiniere!" . . .

"Monsieur," said the pretty countess, after a furtive glance at
Madame's stormy eyes, "do you deny?"

The whistle ceased. "Madame, to you I shall say that I neither
deny nor affirm. The affair is altogether too ridiculous to
treat seriously. I have nothing to say." The whistle picked up
the thread again.

Doubt began to stir in the eyes of the Englishman. He looked at
Madame with a kind of indecision, to find that she was glancing
covertly at him. His gaze finally rested on Maurice, who had
crossed his legs and was keeping time to the music with his foot.
Indeed, these were not the violent protestations of innocence
he had looked for. This demeanor was not at all in accord with
his expectations. Now that he had possessed Madame's lips
(though she might never possess the consols), Maurice did not
appear so guilty.

"Carewe," he said, "you have deceived me from the start."

"Ah! c'est un fameux regiment, Le regiment de la Grande Duchesse!"

"You knew that Madame was her Highness," went on the Englishman,
"and yet you kept that a secret from me. Can you blame me if I
doubt you in other respects?"

"Sonnez donc la trompette, Et battez les tambours!"

And the warbler nodded significantly at Madame, whose frown grew
still darker.

"Eh! Monsieur," cried the Colonel, with a protesting hand, "you
are out of tune!"

"I should like to know why you returned here," said Madame.
"Either you have some plan, or your audacity has no bounds."

The whistle stopped again. "Madame, for once we agree. I, too,
should like to know why I returned here."

"Carewe," said Fitzgerald, "if you will give me your word--"

"Do not waste your breath, Monsieur," interrupted Madame.

"Will you give me your word?" persisted Fitzgerald, refusing to
see the warning in Madame's eyes.

"I will give you nothing, my lord; nothing. I have said that I
will answer neither one way nor the other. The accusation is too
absurd. Now, Madame, what is your pleasure in regard to my
disposition?"

"You are to be locked up, Monsieur," tartly. "You are too
inquisitive to remain at large."

"My confinement will be of short duration," confidently.

"It rests with my pleasure alone."

"Pardon me if I contradict your Highness. I returned here
incidentally as a representative of the British ambassador in
Vienna; I volunteered this office at the request of my own
minister."

A shade of consternation came into the faces of his audience.

"If nothing is heard of me within two days, an investigation
will ensue. It is very droll, but I am here to inquire into the
whereabouts of one Lord Fitzgerald, who has disappeared.
Telegrams to the four ends of the world have brought no news of
his present residence. The archbishop instituted the latter
inquiries, because it was urgent and necessary he should know."

Fitzgerald became enveloped in gloom.

"And your credentials, Monsieur?" said the duchess. "You have
them, I presume?"

"I came as a private gentleman; a telegram to my minister in
Vienna will bring indorsement."

"Ah! Then you shall be locked up. I can not accord you
recognition; without the essential representations, I see
nothing in you but an impertinent meddler. To-morrow evening you
shall be conveyed to Brunnstadt, where you will reside for some
time, I can assure you. Perhaps on your head will rest the blood
of many gallant gentlemen; for within another twenty-four hours
I shall declare war against Leopold. This will be the
consequence of your disloyalty to your word." And she moved
toward the door, the others imitating her. Fitzgerald, more than
any one else, desired to get away.

And one by one they vanished. Once the countess turned and threw
Maurice a glance which mystifled him; it was half curtained with
tears. Presently he was alone. His eye grasped every object.
There was not a weapon in sight; only the bayonets on the table,
and he could scarcely hope to escape by use of one of these. A
carafe of water stood on the table. He went to it and half
emptied it. His back was toward the door. Suddenly it opened. He
wheeled, expecting to see the troopers. His surprise was great.
Beauvais was leaning against the door, a half humorous smile on
his lips. The tableau lasted several minutes.

"Well," said Beauvais, "you do not seem very glad to see me."

Maurice remained silent, and continued to gaze at his enemy over
the tops of the upturned bayonets.

"You are, as I said before, a very young man."

"I killed a puppet of yours last night," replied Maurice, with a
peculiar grimness.

"Eh? So it was you? However, Kopf knew too much; he is dead,
thanks to your service. After all, it was a stroke of war; the
princess, whose little rose you have, was to have been a hostage."

"If she had refused to be a wife," Maurice replied.

Beauvais curled his mustache.

"I know a good deal more than Kopf."

"You do, certainly; but you are at a convenient nearness. What
you know will be of no use to you. Let us sit down."

"I prefer to stand. The honor you do me is too delicate."

"O, you may have no fear."

"I have none--so long as my back isn't turned toward you."

Beauvais passed over this. "You are a very good blade; you
handle a sword well. That is a compliment, considering that I am
held as the first blade in the kingdom. It was only to-day I
learned that formerly you had been a cavalryman in America. You
have the making of a soldier."

Maurice bowed, his hand resting near one of the bayonets.

"You are also a soldier of fortune-like myself. You made a good
stroke with the archbishop. You hoodwinked us all."

Maurice did not reply.

"Very well; we shall not dwell on it. You are discreet."

Maurice saw that Beauvais was speaking in good faith.

"You have something to say; come to it at once, for it is trying
to watch you so closely."

I will give you--" He hesitated and scratched his chin. "I will
give you ten thousand crowns as the price of your silence in
regard to the South American affair."

A sardonic laugh greeted this proposal. "I did not know that you
were so cheap. But it is too late."

"Too late?"

"Doubtless, since by this time the authorities are in possession
of the interesting facts."

"I beg to differ from you."

"Do as you please," said Maurice, triumphantly. "I sent an
account of your former exploits both to my own government and to
the one which you so treacherously betrayed. One or the other
will not fail to reach."

"I am perfectly well aware of that," Beauvais smiled. He reached
into a pocket, and for a moment Maurice expected to see a pistol
come forth. But he was needlessly alarmed. Beauvais extracted
two envelopes from the pocket and sailed them through the
intervening space. They fell on the table. "Put not your trust
in hotel clerks," was the sententious observation. "At least,
till you have discovered that no one else employs them. I am
well served. The clerk was told to intercept your outgoing post;
and there is the evidence. Ten thousand crowns and a safe
conduct."

Maurice picked up the letters mechanically. They were his; the
stamps were not canceled, but the flaps were slit. He turned
them this way and that, bewildered. He was convinced that he
could in no way cope with this man of curious industries, this
man who seemed to have a key for every lock, and whom nothing
escaped. And the wise old Marshal had permitted him to leave the
kingdom without let or hindrance. Perhaps the Marshal understood
that Beauvais was a sort of powder train, and that the farther
he was away from the mine the better for all concerned.

"You are a great rascal," Maurice said finally.

"We will waive that point. The matter at present is, how much
will it take to buy your silence for the future?"

"And I am sorry I did not kill you when I had the chance,"
continued Maurice, as if following a train of thought.

"We never realize how great the opportunity is till it has
passed beyond our reach. Well, how much?"

"I am not in need of money."

"To be sure; I forgot. But the archbishop could not have given
you a competence for life."

"I choked a few facts out of Kopf," said Maurice. "You will wear
no crown--that is, earthly."

"And your heavenly one is near at hand," rejoined Beauvais.

Maurice absently fingered a bayonet.

"You refuse this conciliation on my part?" asked Beauvais.

"Positively."

"Well, then, if anything happens to you, you will have only
yourself to blame. I will leave you to digest that suggestion.
Your life hangs in the balance. I will give you till to-morrow
morning to make up your mind."

"Go to the devil!"

"In that, I shall offer you the precedence." And Beauvais backed
out; backed out because Maurice had wrenched loose one of the
bayonets.

Maurice flung the bayonet across the room, went back to his
chair, and tore his ill-fated letters into ribbons. When this
was done he stared moodily at the impromptu candlesticks, and
tried to conceive the manner in which Beauvais's threat would
materialize.

When the troops returned to their watch, they found the prisoner
in a recumbent position, staring at the cracks in the floor,
oblivious to all else save his thoughts, which were by no means
charitable or humane. They resumed their game of cards. At
length Maurice fell into a light slumber. The next time he
opened his eyes it was because of a peculiar jar, which
continued; a familiar, monotonous jar, such as the tread of feet
on the earth creates. Tramp, tramp, tramp; it was a large body
of men on the march. Soon this was followed by a lighter and
noisier sound --cavalry. Finally, there came the rumbling of
heavy metal--artillery. More than an hour passed before these
varying sounds grew indistinct.

Maurice was now fully awake. An army had passed the Red Chateau.

CHAPTER XXIII

A GAME OF POKER AND THE STAKES

The next morning Beauvais came for his answer. It was not the
answer he had expected.

"So be it," he replied. "Your government had better appoint your
successor at once. Good morning."

"You will die suddenly some day," said Maurice.

Beauvais shrugged, and departed.

It was a dreary long day for the prisoner, who saw no one but
his jailers. He wondered what time they would start for
Brunnstadt. He had never seen Brunnstadt. He hoped the city
would interest him. Was he to be disposed of on the road? No,
that would scarcely be; there were too many witnesses. In the
city prison, then; that was possible. The outlook was not rose-
colored. He set to work to challenge each of his jailers, but
this did not serve. At five o'clock the bluff old Colonel
Mollendorf came in. He dismissed the troopers, who were glad
enough to be relieved.

"I'll be responsible for the prisoner from now on," he said. As
soon as he and Maurice were alone he propped his chin and
contemplated the sullen face of the prisoner. "Well, my son, I
am positive that you have been accused somewhat hastily, but
that's the way women have, jumping at conclusions before they
read the preface. But you must give Madame credit for being
honest in the matter, as well as the others. Beauvais is
positive that the move of the archbishop is due to your selling
out to him. Come, tell me the story. If you wish, I'll promise
not to repeat it. Madame is determined to lock you up in any
event."

There was something so likable about the old warrior that
Maurice relented.

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