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Yet, having that fixed and settled, there is another matter touching which Dehra and I have a vast curiosity: What says the great, brass-bound Laws of the Dalbergs? Has the Order of Succession been changed? Will I supplant Lotzen as the Heir Presumptive? Nor does even the Princess venture to inquire. Perchance, he is reserving it for a surprise at the Dinner, to-night.
I got interested in the opera. Presently, I ventured to glance at Dehra she was laughing behind her fan. Then I ventured again. "I hope," said I, "I did it nicely." "Most artistically, my dear Armand. Escamillo, yonder, could not do it more cleverly." I winced. It is not especially flattering to an Archduke to be classed with a toreador and Carmen's toreador, least of all.
"It's the woman's privilege to fix the day." "Which brings me to the second condition," said he; "that, until the present wife, which some one seems to have provided for Armand, has been eliminated, not only may there be no marriage, but the betrothal, itself, must remain a secret with us three." "But she's not his wife!" Dehra exclaimed. "No," said the King, "she is not his wife.
Towards the end of that year it was arranged that our connection with Benares should cease, and that we should begin a new mission at Ranee Khet, about twenty miles north-west from Almora. Kumaon is a sub-Himalayan region, with Nepal to the east, the snowy range, separating it from Tibet, to the north, Gurhwal and Dehra Doon to the west, and Rohilkund to the south.
"What shall it be?" said Lady Helen to the Princess. Dehra shrugged her pretty shoulders and raised her hands expressively. "The only punishment that fits the crime is to deprive the Duke of Lotzen of all wine for the rest of the evening." It seemed to me the Duke winced. "Your Highness is severe," he said. She looked him straight in the eyes.
"You see, sir, the very thing you were so insistent upon, now works to your disadvantage. If it were not for that Decree you could laugh at this woman. I could simply pronounce her morganatic, and you would be quite free to marry Dehra, at once." But I shook my head. "I must bring Dehra a clean record," I said; "and I have no fault to find with that Decree.
But I had kissed her, and that was something to remember, though, doubtless, that itself but proved me the greater idiot. All this and much more whirled through my mind in the moment of the Princess's leaving; then I turned, expecting to face the scorn of the King, and found him wiping the tears from his eyes and shaking with laughter. So this was what had seat Dehra from the room in anger.
She smiled sweetly, almost as sweetly as Dehra herself could do. "Let us wait until we know if we were seen," she said. I made a move to kiss her again, but she drew away. "Not so, sir; that time you did not look," she said, and stepped out into the light. Then I took her back to Lady Radnor. "Don't be disconsolate, Major," she said, as we parted. "No one saw you on the terrace."
I suppose Frederick saw my embarrassment for he smiled broadly. "Come, Armand," he said; "pull up that chair. I suppose we may not smoke here," he added; "though I think I detect the faint suggestion of a miserable cigarette," and he looked at the Princess. Dehra took a tiny jeweled case from somewhere about her gown and offered it to the King. "Will Your Majesty try a Nestor?" she said.
"I do not know," she answered, rather tartly. "It was not, I assume, my duty to report it." "And, further, Madame," Lotzen continued. "If Major Dalberg were lucky enough to marry you, why, in Heaven's name, should he deny you within a few short months?" "I might guess one of the reasons," she answered languidly and let her eyes rest upon the Princess. And Dehra laughed in her face.
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