The Goose Girl | Page 9

and drew his arm closely against her side.
"To me the world began but two weeks ago. I have just begun to live."
"I am glad," said Gretchen. "But listen."
The band was playing again.
"Sometimes I am jealous even of that."
"I love you none the less for loving it."
"I know; but I am sad and lonely to-night"--gloomily. "I want all your thoughts."
"Are they not always yours? And why should you be sad and miserable?"
"Why, indeed!"
"Leo, as much as I love you, there is always a shadow."
"What shadow?"
"It is always at night that I see you, rarely in the bright daytime. What do you do during the day? It is not yet vintage. What do you do?"
"Will you trust me a little longer, Gretchen, just a little longer?"
"Always, not a little longer, always. But wait till the music stops and I will tell you of my adventure."
"You have had an adventure?"--distrustfully.
"Yes. Be still."
There were tones in Gretchen's voice that the young vintner could never quite understand. There was a will little less than imperial, and often as he rebelled, he never failed to bow to it.
"What was this adventure?" he demanded, as the music stopped.
She told him about the geese, the grand duke, and the two crowns. He laughed, and she joined him, for it was amusing now.
The musicians were putting away their instruments, the crowd was melting, the attendants were stacking the chairs, so the two lovers went out of the gardens toward the town and the Krumerweg.
Meanwhile Carmichael had lectured the policeman, who was greatly disturbed.
"Your Excellency, I am sure Colonel von Wallenstein meant no harm."
"Are you truthfully sure?"
The policeman plucked at his beard nervously. "It is every man for himself, as your excellency knows. Had I spoken to the colonel, he would have had me broken."
"You could have appealed to the duke."
"Perhaps. I am sorry for the girl, but I have a family to take care of."
"Well, mark me; this little woman loves music; she comes here often. The next time she is annoyed by Wallenstein or any one else, you report it to me. I'll see that it reaches his highness."
"I shall gladly do that, your Excellency."
Carmichael left the gardens and wandered with aimless step. He was surprised to find that he was opposite the side gates to the royal gardens. His feet had followed the bent of his mind. Yet he did not cross the narrow side street. The sound of carriage wheels caused him to halt. He waited. The carriage he had seen by the fountain drew up before the gates, and the woman in black alighted. She spoke to the sentinel, who opened the gates and closed them. The veiled lady vanished abruptly beyond the shrubbery.
"I wonder who that was?" was Carmichael's internal question. "Bah! Some lady-in-waiting with an affair on hand."
CHAPTER III
FOR HER COUNTRY
"Count, must I tell you again not to broach that subject? There can be no alliance between Ehrenstein and Jugendheit."
"Why?" asked Count von Herbeck, chancellor, coolly returning the angry flash from the ducal eyes.
"There are a thousand reasons why, but it is not my purpose to name them."
"Name only one, your Highness, only one."
"Will that satisfy you?"
"Perhaps."
"One of my reasons is that I do not want any alliance with a country so perfidious as Jugendheit. What! I make overtures? I, who have been so cruelly wronged all these years? You are mad."
"But what positive evidence have you that Jugendheit wronged you?"
"Positive? Have I eyes and ears? Have I not seen and read and heard?" This time the duke struck the desk savagely. "Why do you always rouse me in this fashion, Herbeck? You know how distasteful all this is to me."
"Your highness knows that I look only to the welfare of the country. In the old days it was a foregone conclusion that this alliance was to be formed. Now, you persist in averring that the late king was the chief conspirator in abducting her serene highness, aided by Arnsberg, whose successor I have the honor to be. I have never yet seen any proofs. You have never yet produced them. Show me something which absolutely convicts them, and I'll surrender."
"On your honor?"
"My word."
The grand duke struck the bell on the chancellor's desk.
"My secretary, and tell him to bring me the packet marked A. He will understand."
The two men waited without speaking, each busy with thought. The duke had been in his youth, and was still, a handsome man, splendidly set up, healthy and vigorous, keen mentally, and whatever stubbornness he possessed nicely balanced by common sense. He might have been guilty in his youth of a few human peccadillos, but the kingly and princely excesses which at that time were making the east side of the Rhine the scandal of the world had in no wise sullied his name. Ehrenstein means "stone