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The Chancellor's heart was heavy. The Chancellor watched the Crown Prince, as he sat at the high desk, laboriously writing. It was the hour of English composition, and Prince Ferdinand William Otto was writing a theme. "About dogs," he explained. "I've seen a great many, you know. I could do it better with a pencil. My pen sticks in the paper." He wrote on, and Mettlich sat and watched.
By now Karl knew the story, knew of his midnight ride over the mountains; and the haste it indicated. He sheathed himself in dignity; did the Chancellor, held his head high and moved ponderously, as became one who came to talk of important matters, but not to ask a boon. Karl himself led the way to his study, ignoring the chamberlain, and stood aside to let Mettlich enter.
More than that, he was of an age now to crave popularity. Many of the measures which had made him beloved in his own land had no higher purpose than this, the smiles of the crowd. So he watched and talked of indifferent things. "It is ten years since I have been here," he observed, "but there are few changes." "We have built no great buildings," said Mettlich bluntly.
The very hands with which she sometimes changed his pillows were coldly efficient. She had not kissed him in years. And now, secretly willing that Hedwig should marry Karl, she was ready to annoy him by objecting to it. On the day after her conversation with General Mettlich, she visited the King. It was afternoon.
By arrangement with the captain of the Palace guard, who was one of the Committee of Ten, the sentries before the Crown Prince's door were to be of the revolutionary party. Mettlich would undoubtedly be with the King. Remained then to be reckoned with only the Prince's personal servants, Miss Braithwaite, and Nikky Larisch. The servants offered little difficulty.
The snow was hardly more than a coating, but wet and slippery. Mettlich stalked on, as one who would defy the elements, or anything else, to hinder him that night. He was well around the curve, and the cliff was broken by a wedge of timber, when a curiously shaped object projected itself over the edge of the bank, and rolling down, lay almost at his feet.
"I depend on you, Captain Larisch," said the King gravely, and nodded his head in a gesture of dismissal. Nikky backed toward the door, struck a hassock, all but went down, bowed again at the door, and fled. "A fine lad," said General Mettlich, "but no talker." "All the better," replied His Majesty. "I am tired of men who talk well. And" he smiled faintly "I am tired of you. You talk too well.
Through a long luncheon, the two alone and even the servants dismissed, through a longer afternoon, negotiations went on. Mettlich fought hard on some points, only to meet defeat. Karl stood firm. The great fortresses on the border must hereafter contain only nominal garrisons. For the seaport strip he had almost doubled his price. The railroad must be completed within two years.
It was well enough for Mettlich to say the few could not speak for the many. It took but one man to do a murder, Karl reflected grimly. But when he arrived for tea in the Archduchess's white drawing-room he was urbane and smiling. Hedwig, standing with cold hands and terrified eyes by the tea-table, disliked both his urbanity and his smile.
They bore marks of struggle, and each had been stabbed through the veins of the neck, as though they had been first subdued and then scientifically destroyed. Nikky, summoned to the Chancellor's house that morning, had been told the facts, and had stood, rather still and tense, while Mettlich recounted them. "Our very precautions are our danger," said the Chancellor.
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