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Sanderson had asked Armitage to return to her for a little Montana talk, as she put it, after the first rush of their entrance was over, and as he waited in the drawing-room for an opportunity of speaking to her, he chatted with Franzel, an attaché of the Austrian embassy, to whom Sanderson had introduced him.
It was like a rehearsal of some trifle in a comedy. "How charming!" laughed Mrs. Sanderson. "And this lovely room is just the place for it." They were still talking together as Franzel, with whom Armitage had spoken below, entered hurriedly. He held a crumpled note, whose contents, it seemed, had shaken him out of his habitual melancholy composure.
But here in America the death of an emperor seems less important. A king or a peasant, what does it matter!" "Better ask the robin in yonder budding chestnut tree, Monsieur. This is not an hour for hard questions!" "Ah, you are very cruel! You drive me back to poor, melancholy Franzel, who is indeed a funeral in himself."
At a bend of the road Chauvenet and Franzel, the attaché, swung into view, mounted, and as they met, Chauvenet turned his horse and rode beside her. "Ah, these American airs! This spring! Is it not good to be alive, Miss Claiborne?" "It is all of that!" she replied. It seemed to her that the day had not needed Chauvenet's praise.
If we were younger, Franzel, we, too, would mix with yonder crowd, and dance awhile. But I suppose we must leave that to our children, and betake ourselves to the card-table or to the opera-house." "If your majesty leaves me the choice," said the emperor, "I vote for the opera." The empress took his arm, while she turned to the Countess Lerchenfeld, the governess of the archduchesses.
She had really enjoyed his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and small social affairs that marked the end of the season. "Poor Franzel is indeed triste. He is taking the death of Johann Wilhelm quite hard.
Franzel was a gloomy young man with a monocle, and he was waiting for a particular girl, who happened to be the daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. And, this being his object, he had chosen his position with care, near the door of the drawing-room, and Armitage shared for the moment the advantage that lay in the Austrian's point of view.
Chauvenet was in Washington, at any rate, and not only there, but socially accepted and in the good graces of Shirley Claiborne. The somber attaché was speaking of the Japanese. "They must be crushed crushed," said Franzel. The two had been conversing in French.
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