A PRINCE OF LOVERS

“It is indeed farewell, dear Princess? I am to go?”

Frontispiece.

A Prince of Lovers

A Romance

By SIR WILLIAM MAGNAY Bart Author of “The Red Chancellor,” “The Man-Trap,” “The Heiress of the Season,” Etc., Etc.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CYRUS CUNEO

Boston Little, Brown and Company 1905

Copyright, 1905, By Little, Brown, and Company.

All rights reserved Published March, 1905 Plates by The Husted Linotype Co., Cleveland, U. S. A. Presswork by The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A.

CHAPTER I THE DUKE AND HIS MASTER

FOR the greater part of two centuries after the close of the Thirty Years War there existed in Germany some two hundred independent states. It is with two of these, lying in the midst of what was once the Hercynian forest, which tract even then, although in slow process of clearing, retained much of its primitive, desolate wildness, that the events of the following story are concerned.

And it may be well to premise, seeing that nowadays in story-telling the realms of imagination have often a two-fold meaning, literal as well as metaphorical, that, though the embroidery of this tale may be fanciful, the ground upon which it is worked is of the substance called fact. For the once secret chronicles of these two hundred kingdoms, principalities, palatinates, bishoprics, duchies, landgravates and what not form very pretty reading to the student of humanity; and the dull atmosphere of much pettiness and fatuous pomp is lighted up in welcome fashion by occasional stars of romance. And, after all, apart from the favourable soil they find in that traditional land of the romantic, these flowers which continually spring up amid the dull herbage are easily accounted[2] for. For what is romance but the opposite of the humdrum? And is not human nature the same all the world over, flourishing even when found in the stifling confinement of a formal and etiquette-bound court? And does not young and healthy humanity rebel against the

humdrum, and fight tooth and nail against its own repression?

Thus it came about that the somewhat dramatic romance of the following pages was played upon a fitting stage, with a change of scenes, the royal palace, and the castle in the wood, homes respectively of the heroine and the villain of the piece. The actors have been dead and forgotten for more than a century, although they live in their types to-day, the style of their playing alone being changed. The weak sovereign, the ambitious, astute, unscrupulous minister, the brave, chivalrous hero, the heroine for whom pride and love and policy are desperately fighting—at least we all know her—the cold, imperious beauty with the burning heart. And the unprincipled man-of-the-world, self-indulgent and scheming to his own gratification, at least he is not extinct, nor is the weakly ambitious plotter who would grasp the fruit but fears to climb the tree, and the evil councillor who for the benefit of his own desperate fortunes eggs him up.

With quieter methods they are in our midst to-day. They are walking through their parts with just as much determination of spirit as was theirs who fought and strutted and fretted and postured in the days before life was so carefully toned down—in the days of this story. And that the story is in the main true the annals above mentioned can vouch, even if the events may not in the reality have welded themselves together just as here set down with a mind for the reader’s patience as well as his hoped-for entertainment.

In his private cabinet Duke Theodor of Waldavia was going through his daily consultation with his Chancellor,[3] Baron Rollmar; a prescribed custom as irksome to both as it was unnecessary to either.

“Your excellency has reckoned without your host,” said the Duke.

“I do not propose, Highness,” replied the Chancellor, grimly confident, “that my host shall have the making up of the reckoning at all.”

“He may not submit to dictation,” suggested his highness.

“Then he will be a greater fool than I take him for, seeing that this project is as much for his benefit as ours.”

“Some men,” the Duke hazarded out of his somewhat limited experience, “would not take kindly to a forced marriage.”

“Your Highness uses a harsh word,” Rollmar observed indifferently.

“Perhaps. I was thinking of my daughter.”

The Chancellor just checked a shrug. “Dukes’ daughters and beggars cannot be choosers. But we have yet to learn that Princess Ruperta has occasion to bewail her particular lot.”

“She is in an abominably false position. Prince Ludwig’s silence and indifference would be galling enough to any woman’s pride. And Ruperta has, perhaps, more than her share.”

The old minister gave a slight bow of assent. Crowned monarchs are not to be contradicted gratuitously, even when they indulge in self-disparagement.

“The position is becoming intolerable,” his highness continued.

“Any hour may end it,” said Rollmar, quietly. Then he added, “Surely you approve of the alliance, sire?”

“Naturally.” Duke Theodor emphasised the word with a nod which was intended to express the dignity which in his conferences with his Chancellor was always provokingly elusive. “Of course it would be of untold[4] advantage to both crowns. It is a most natural desire. The uniting of the two kingdoms would more than double their power and influence.”

“It should increase them tenfold,” said Rollmar, as repeating a cut-and-dried argument for his policy. “And not only their power but their wealth; the development, more especially, of the natural wealth of the one by union with the labour of the other.”

“Yes, yes,” snapped the Duke, impatiently, almost petulantly. “That is our view. Our immediate concern, however, is that of Ruperta and Prince Ludwig.”

Rollmar smiled, and his smile seemed hardly to endorse the word concern.

“Except to themselves, is it very material?” he asked significantly.

The Duke tried to look resolute. “I have my daughter’s happiness to think of, Baron,” he protested.

“Doubtless. So have I,” he returned imperturbably. “And am taking the measures to secure it.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” the Duke admitted pettishly. “But this state of affairs will not do so. We shall be a laughing-stock.”

“Let him laugh who wins.”

“Ludwig’s conduct in ignoring the matter is an insult.”

“We will not think so, much less say so.”

“But others will.”

“Others are not going to marry him.”

“Are we?”

“Certainly; without fail; most assuredly.”

The Duke rose and paced the room.

“But how long is this state of things going to last, Baron? You must remember that Ruperta is not one to take kindly to the part of a puppet. She is a girl of spirit, and this wretched fellow Ludwig, by his cavalier treatment, is rousing it in a way that threatens difficulties[5] to our project. Can nothing be done? Where is the fellow?”

“Nobody knows. If anybody did it would be I.”

“I feel inclined,” said Theodor, working himself into a weak man’s passion, “to throw over the whole affair. It would be the most dignified course.”

“And the most foolish.”

The Duke turned sharply at the blunt rejoinder. “Certainly not more foolish than we are showing ourselves at present.”

Rollmar gave a great audible sigh as he often did when his master was particularly tiresome.

“Pardon me, sire. A thousand times worse, although I do not seem able to convince you of the fact. I may be so unfortunate as to differ in ideas from your Highness, but my notion of foolishness would be to abandon a magnificent chance of imperial aggrandisement for the sake of taking umbrage at a boy’s want of manners. Ludwig is a fool; he may not know it, but we do, and when he sets his eyes for the first time on Princess Ruperta he will know it too. The mischief is that they have taken it into their heads to dislike each other before they have ever met. But I anticipate little difficulty on that account.”

“Perhaps not,” replied the Duke, who rejoiced in his rare opportunities of twitting his masterful minister with failure. “But you must first find your runaway bridegroom.”

“I intend to find him,” Rollmar returned quietly.

“When found you may perhaps discover a wife as well,” suggested Theodor, making the most of his temporary advantage.

The Chancellor smiled grimly, and there was an ugly gleam in his dark, fierce eyes. “It would be a pity—more particularly for her,” he rejoined. “But as his bride would certainly not be of his own rank the position would present little difficulty.”

[6]The Duke understood his words the more clearly as read by the pitiless light in his eyes. The talk was taking a turn which he always made a point of avoiding. If he was virtually governed by his astute old servant and left him practically a free hand he would at least take no responsibility for or cognisance of his ruthlessly unscrupulous methods.

“At least we may take care that my daughter forms no undesirable attachment,” he said somewhat feebly to give a turn to the subject.

“You may leave me to deal with such a contingency,” Rollmar said, drawing back his lips in a significant smile.

“Ludwig’s unheard-of conduct is enough to make a girl of spirit rebel.”

“She may rebel,” Rollmar retorted, beginning to grow impatient. “We are prepared for rebellion. I think your Highness’ hint can be referred to no actual cause?”

“No,” said the Duke, weakly. “I know of no attachment. I only fear it.”

“You need not fear it, sire,” replied Rollmar, with infinite meaning in his smile. “The favoured lover’s life would be a very short one.”

CHAPTER II AT THE FORTUNE-TELLER’S

THE moonlit gables of the city threw a zig-zag pattern on the cobble-paved streets, and brought alternately into view and obscurity the few passers-by, among whom were two women, who, hurrying along, seemed, by keeping as near as possible to the base of the triangular shadows, to shun observation. Recognition, indeed, would not have been easy, for the ample hoods of their grey cloaks were drawn well over their faces; only their figures and lightness of step told that they were young. As to their looks there was, for the reason already given, no room for more than speculation. Close as they kept together but few words passed between them, and those scarcely above a whisper. Of the people whom they met a good many turned to look after them in curiosity, but owing no doubt to their air of purposeful hurry, no man seemed to think it worth while to follow them. Up to a certain point, that is.

Arrived at the fork where one street ran into two the women paused as if uncertain which to take. It was necessary to look up and read the names, and as they did so a man crossing the street caught a momentary glimpse of one of the up-turned faces silhouetted against an oil lamp, which, from its place some yards away, was brought into level with the girl’s head. He stopped, almost with a start, then crossing quickly to the shadow of an entry,[8] waited till the girls resumed their way, upon which he came out and followed them.

They went, however, but a couple of hundred yards farther. Before a house in a small secluded Platz they stopped and stood hesitating. On the door was a plate where by the light of a bluish lamp which hung in the portico could be read the one word, “Parabosco.” The courage of the two girls, if checked, soon returned; they went boldly to the door, which at their approach opened silently and admitted them. The man who had followed them now paced up and down the Platz in thoughtful indecision.

He was a good-looking young fellow, alert and soldier-like; yet in the strong moonlight the face seemed much more than that of a mere city lounger; its beauty was intellectual, its distinction manifestly came from a sense of power, power in action united with gentleness of manner. That was the man’s attraction, his easily imagined fascination, that sense of quiet, unobtrusive strength; the charm lay not in his mere features but in the spirit behind them.

Presently, as though his resolve was taken, he went up to the blue-lit door. An unseen hand opened it as before and, without a word, he passed in. Meanwhile the two girls had entered a room hung with dark velvet on which were worked strange cabalistic devices. The air was subtily perfumed and a light shining through a globe of blue crystal just illuminated the room enough to enhance its character of mystery. Perhaps the most striking feature of this was the dead silence, a stillness that seemed to strike the visitors dumb with its almost appalling intensity.

“I wish we had not come.” Fear forced out the whisper from one of the girls.

“We cannot help it now,” returned her companion, whose voice, scarcely above her breath, seemed only just to repress a tremor.

[9]“I had no idea it was a place like this,” the other said, looking round with almost a shudder. “If they—he—the man should find out——”

“He will, easily, if you chatter.”

“Well,” persisted the irrepressible one, “this is not what I bargained for. I thought it would be a piece of fun, but I don’t—oh!”

Her talk was cut short by a woman in oriental dress who had suddenly appeared and, holding the curtains aside, was motioning the visitors to pass through. With a momentary hesitation they followed her gesture, and as they crossed a small ante-room a door in front of them swung open and they found themselves in the presence of the fortune-teller to whom their curiosity had attracted them. The sanctum of this modern soothsayer was furnished with the usual stock-in-trade of his profession, objects calculated to inspire awe—or something worse—in the vulgar, and to throw a glamour of the supernatural over what, stripped of the mystic surroundings, might have been a common-place personality. The flamboyant chart of the heavens, the divining crystal, a skull, the glowing brazier, all were there, and at a table by a great parchment volume sat the fortune-teller. A sharp-eyed man with clean-shaven, cunning face in which a certain suggestion of intellectuality was spoilt by the expression resulting from the habitual practice of roguery.

The light was so arranged that it fell on the visitors, leaving the fortune-teller in comparative obscurity, like a great spider in the corner of his web.

“Ladies,” he said in his professional phrase, with a well practised trick of voice, unnatural and therefore calculated to add to the air of the supernatural, “you have come, I presume, to consult the stars and the oracles of the unseen world whose humble interpreter I am. It is well; the time is propitious, the hour is golden.”

Doubtless the emphasis he laid upon the last word was intended as a hint, for with that he pushed toward[10] his clients a silver shell in which lay several coins. Each of the girls added a piece of gold, at which the eyes gleaming out of the semi-darkness seemed to give a flash of satisfaction. With that the soothsayer made a show of the tricks of his trade. He described figures with his wand; cast chemicals into the brazier, causing ghastly flames to leap and spirt; he took, perfunctorily indeed, an observation of the heavens and affected an invocative rapture. All this, however, did not last long, possibly because the performer may have received an intimation that another visitor was waiting to consult him. But the farce was gone through with a gravity which did credit to the restraint behind that very mundane face.

“Now will one of you ladies advance and place the lines of your hand under observation?” he said in a tone of commanding request.

Still keeping her hood well over her face, one of the girls went forward to the table and extended her hand, a long aristocratic hand of exquisite shape, a hand that even to a man less shrewd than the fortune-teller must have revealed the station of its owner. Whether indeed he had suspected or not the character of his visitors, the man glanced up from the hand with a sharp look of inquiry at the half-concealed face. The scrutiny was but momentary, next instant he was bending with a magnifying glass over the outstretched palm. The time-honoured jargon of the fortune-teller was repeated; then the cards told the same tale with alluring variations, the stars gave a confirmatory horoscope.

“Jupiter in conjunction with Venus points to a great, we might almost venture to say a royal marriage,” the seer pronounced with professional glibness.

“No, no, not that!” the girl exclaimed with a vehemence which startled the professor. “At least, I mean it is not certain, is it? It can be prevented, it can be fought against?”

[11]The smile on the man’s face did not hide the look of intense curiosity with which he regarded her.

“Fight against the stars?” he protested with a deprecating laugh. “You are a bold young lady to imagine that.”

“Against the stars? No,” she returned impetuously. “But against the powers here below that would coerce fate.”

“The fate I have predicted,” rejoined the fortune-teller dryly, “is scarcely one which a woman would fight against.”

“That may be,” the girl retorted, “but perhaps, Herr Professor, if your skill in divination were as great as is pretended you would hardly be surprised at my distaste for the fate you have predicted.”

The sharp eyes with their keen iridescence were fastened on her now in triumphant premeditation.

“My skill scarcely deserves your sneer, madame,” he replied with a repressing of his thoughts. “It may be greater than you imagine or than I claim. Dare you challenge me to put it to the proof? Will you—it is no light test—will you look into the magic mirror?”

“Why should I?” the girl asked half contemptuously.

“Merely that your scepticism may see how far it is warranted. The mirror may confirm my verbal forecast,” he gave a shrug, “or not. Only I warn you that what you shall see there may not be agreeable.”

The other girl who had so far sat intently silent rose and caught her companion’s arm. “No,” she urged in a frightened whisper, “do not look, I beg you. It may be terrible.”

“Worse than the royal marriage?” the other exclaimed with a scornful laugh. “I cannot stop half-way now. I have heard my fate, I must see its confirmation.”

“As you will,” said the fortune-teller quietly. “Only do not blame me should the result be displeasing.”

“Show me, Herr Professor.”

[12]He rose. “For that,” he said, “you must be here alone. Your friend may wait in the ante-chamber.”

“You hear, Minna?”

“No, no; it is not right. I will not leave you. Surely you have heard enough.”

“No; I mean to see what this mirror has to show. What,” laughing, “did we come for but to know the future?”

The dark eyes out of the shadow were watching the two girls furtively, but their owner spoke no word of persuasion. Doubtless his knowledge of human nature told him that curiosity would prevail unaided. And so it was. The companion was forced reluctantly to leave them, and when the two were alone the fortune-teller quietly slipped round and, under pretence of seeing that the door was securely shut, slipped home its bolt.

“Remove your hood,” he said facing the girl.

“It is unnecessary,” she replied. “I came to see, not to be seen.”

“Precisely,” the professor returned with a sarcastic grin. “And you thought to trifle with our sublime art. You judge so meanly of it as to fancy that we whose knowledge passes human comprehension are ignorant of the very identity of those who consult us. You pay us a poor compliment, Princess.”