"And you, my Lord Armand, declare that I am not your wife and, therefore, that I am an American subject?"

"I think, Mrs. Spencer, we have gone over that matter _ad nauseam_," I said.

"I grant you the nauseousness," she retorted.

"A bare-faced lie may not be over chary as to the defence it provokes,"

I answered.

She gathered up her skirts, and turned toward the door.

"What a pretty sight you three are," she sneered. "A King, an Amba.s.sador and a Royal Archduke playing with one poor woman like cats with a mouse. Truly, sirs, you should have lived three hundred years ago. You would have shown rare skill in the torture chambers of the Holy Inquisition."

"'Pon my soul, madame!" Frederick exclaimed, "I'm glad to hear a frank opinion of myself. It's a privilege that rarely comes to a King."

"More's the pity for the King," she replied. "And more's the shame for his selfish advisers," and she looked at Courtney, and, then, at me.

"Have I Your Majesty's permission to depart--to my hotel?" she ended.

The King nodded, without replying.

She swept him another of those wonderful curtsies; then turned to Moore, who swung back the door for her.

At the threshold she looked back and smiled at me.

"_Au revoir_, Armand, dear, _au revoir_," she said almost caressingly; "you will come back to me soon, I know."

Before I could frame an answer she was gone.

XIX

MY COUSIN, THE DUKE

For the next few weeks, matters went along without any particular incident. The snarl, in which I was entangled, showed no signs of unravelling, and my marriage to the Princess and the Royal succession seemed farther away than ever.

The investigations, in the United States, had yielded nothing of any utility. Indeed, they had been practically barren, for they had told me little more than Courtney's cablegram.

Edwards, the witness named in the certificate, had not been located, though New York had been sc.r.a.ped as with a fine-tooth comb; so, it was safe to a.s.sume his existence was only on paper and in Alderman McGuire's brain.

The movements of Madeline Spencer had been very difficult to trace, as was entirely natural--for what hotel servant would remember, weeks after, the doings of a woman guest, whose life had been at all regular.

All that could be ascertained, definitely, was that she had sailed from New York ten days prior to her arrival at Dornlitz; and that she had registered as Mrs. Armand Dalberg at the Waldorf a week before sailing; her luggage having been checked there from Philadelphia. The floor-clerk and some of the pages recalled her very readily, and were rather positive that they had not seen any foreigner with her, who resembled a Valerian.

That was about the extent of the detectives' discoveries; for Philadelphia yielded absolutely nothing, beyond the fact that she had been at one of the Broad Street hotels, for a fortnight, prior to coming to New York; and, before that, in Pittsburgh, Washington, and New York; the last corresponding, in date, to my interview with her, there, in December. At none of these places, could any traces be discovered of an emissary of Lotzen.

Nor did the investigations at this end, conducted for me by Courtney's secret agents, yield anything more satisfactory. During the period, in question, the Duke had not been away from the Capital for over three days at any one time, and none of his suite had been absent longer than a week. Nevertheless, I was none the less positive that there had been some sort of communication between Madeline Spencer, in America, and the Duke of Lotzen, in Valeria, in response to which she was here.

So, it seemed Courtney was correct, as usual. He had predicted that nothing would be found by the detectives; because, as he said, it was just a case in which all tracks would be most effectively covered by doing everything in the most ordinary way--and, apparently, that was just what had been done.

There seemed to be nothing but to cultivate patience and settle down to wait for someone to blunder, or for the lady to get tired of her enforced residence in Dornlitz, and begin to get restless, and do something which would give us a clue to work on.

She had retained her apartments at the Hotel Metzen--the management having, however, addressed me as to my pleasure, in the matter--and, at least, once every day, she had sought to pa.s.s some one of the City gates; and, when refused, would then demand exit as the wife of the Grand Duke Armand.

She drove and rode and walked about the town the cynosure of all eyes--and some of them of admiring men, who would have been very ready, doubtless, to start a flirtation; both for their own pleasure and in the hope of gaining my good will by discrediting her.

But, she would have none of them, and went her way with the serene blindness of an honest woman.

In the hotel, she bore herself with the quiet dignity and reserve suitable to her a.s.sumed position. With the guests, particularly Americans, she was frankly gracious and friendly; but, it was evident, she sought no sympathy and wanted no confidants.

All these details came to me in the reports of the Secret Police. I saw her very frequently on the street; pa.s.sing her both on the sidewalk and on horseback. And if she were pining for the newly wedded husband, who had forsaken and denied her, she most a.s.suredly did not show it.

Nor did her impudence diminish. Whenever she saw me she tried to catch my eye. Several times it happened she was watching me when I first observed her; then, like a flash, she would bow and smile with the air of the most intimate camaraderie.

Of course, I pointedly ignored her, but it had no effect; for the next time her greeting was only the more effusively intimate. Naturally, the people stared. I felt sure they winked at one another knowingly, when my back was turned. The whole situation was intensely irritating and growing more so every day; and my patience, never long at best, must have been a trifle uncertain for those around me.

I think I am not an unjust man, by nature; but some provocations would make even the best tempers quick and squally. And, then, what is the good of being an Archduke, if one may not flare out occasionally!

I was a bit lonely, too. The King was in the North and the Princess was with him--and so, for a time, was Lotzen, I happened to know; though I understood he had, now, left them and was returning to Dornlitz. I wished him a long journey and a slow one.

His suave courtesy was becoming unbearable; and my sorest trial was to receive it calmly and to meet it in kind. Truly, if he had found a brilliant leading woman in Madeline Spencer, he had an equally brilliant leading man in himself.

I was no possible match for him; and I could feel the sneer behind his smile. I wanted to give him a good body beating--and I was sure he knew it, and that it only amused him. I could, now, quite understand the rage which makes a man walk up to another and smash him in the face without a word of preliminary. I would have given five years of life to do that to Lotzen.

And, instead, I had to smile--and smile--and smile. Bah! it makes me shiver.

He must have fancied I wished him a long absence, for he returned with astonishing promptness. I saw him the next afternoon in the Officers'

Club--and our greeting was almost effusive. In fact, if anything were required to prove how intensely we despised each other, this demonstrative cordiality supplied it. It was so hollow it fairly resounded with derision.

"I'll ride over to Headquarters with you," he said.

"I'm walking," I answered.

"Good, I'll walk, too," he replied.

So, we set out--the orderly following with the Duke's horse.

"When did you come in?" I asked--knowing perfectly well the very hour of his arrival.

"Last night, on the Express from the North," he answered--knowing that I already knew it.

"Had a good time, of course?" I remarked.

"Delightful--we wished for you."

"It's astonishing how kind you all are to the stranger," I said.

He shot a quick glance at me.

"We don't regard you as a stranger, my dear cousin," he protested.