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At five General Mettlich had risen, exercised before an open window with an old pair of iron dumbbells, had followed this with a cold bath and hot coffee, and had gone to early Mass at the Cathedral. And there, on his knees, he had prayed for a little help. He was, he said, getting old and infirm, and he had been too apt all his life to rely on his own right arm.
Such a shout from relieved throats as went up, such a clatter as swords were drawn from scabbards and held upright in the air. "Otto!" they cried. And again, "Otto." The little King had turned quite pale with excitement. Late in the evening Nikky Larisch went to the Council room. The Council had dispersed, and Mettlich sat alone.
Yet she was composed enough when, before the sun was well up, the machine drew up in the village before the inn where Mettlich had spent his uneasy hours. Her heavy veils aroused the curiosity of the landlord. When, shortly after, his daughter brought down a letter to be sent at once to the royal hunting-lodge, he shrugged his shoulders.
"His Excellency, General Mettlich," said the maid. The Archduchess nodded her august head, and the maid retired. "Go away, Olga," said the Archduchess. "And you might," she suggested grimly, "gargle your throat." The Chancellor had passed a troubled night. Being old, like the King, he required little sleep.
Ask the Palace where he is. Ask those who have allied themselves with Karnia. Ask Mettlich." There was more, of course. The cries of "To the Palace!" increased. Those behind pushed forward, shoving the ones ahead toward the archway, where a line of soldiers with fixed bayonets stood waiting.
The fright of the afternoon had weakened him, and if Mettlich were right he had what the King considered a perfectly damnable habit of being right the Royalist party would need outside help to maintain the throne. "Karnia!" he said. "The lion and the lamb, with the lamb inside the lion! And in, the mean time the boy " "He should be watched always."
He lighted a cigarette, and stepping out into a small balcony which overlooked the Square, faced the quiet night. "That is my plea, sire," Mettlich finished. "Karl of Karnia is anxious to marry, and looks this way.
"Annunciata is a fool," said His Majesty. Then dismissing his daughter with a gesture, "We don't know how to raise our children here," he said impatiently. "The English do better. And even the Germans " It is not etiquette to lower one's eyebrows at a king, and glare. But General Mettlich did it. He was rather a poor subject.
Between us and revolution there stand only the frail life of a boy and an army none too large, and already, perhaps, affected. There is much discontent, and the offspring of discontent is anarchy." The King snarled. But Mettlich had taken his courage in his hands, and went on. Their neighbor and hereditary foe was Karnia. Could they any longer afford the enmity of Karnia?
The Chancellor stood near the boy, resplendent in his dress uniform, a blue ribbon across his shirt front, over which Mathilde had taken hours. He was the Mettlich of the public eye now, hard of features, impassive, inflexible. In ordinary times less state would have been observed, a smaller room, Mettlich only, or but one or two others, an informal ceremony.
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