he discovered. To add further to this strange state of affairs, the more amiable she was towards him the more ill at ease did he become with her. He seemed restless, discontented, and yet particularly anxious to be on friendly terms with myself, the one person of all others, after what had happened that afternoon, whom he might have been forgiven had he ignored. I could not understand it all, and the more I thought of it the more it troubled me. Surely Max did not imagine that I deemed it likely I should ever ascend the throne! I could not believe that he would be so foolish as to attach any credence to the old superstition concerning the Michael cross, or that even if he did, he would be weak enough to allow it to embitter his life.
If I live to be a hundred I shall not forget that evening, every detail connected with which, as I have shown, is engraved upon my memory. It was considerably after ten o'clock before my father and Marquart joined us in the drawing-room. The former seemed in excellent spirits, the latter scarcely so happy. Doubtless he had come expecting to find his old master pining to be back in his own country once more. His shrewd common sense, however, must have shown him, before they had been very long together, that this was far from being the case. He found him contented with his lot, and far from desirous of again taking up the load of responsibility he had been so fortunate as to cast off. Knowing nothing of the strained state of affairs that had existed prior to their entrance, Marquart must not be blamed if he unwittingly intensified the unpleasantness of the situation. He seated himself by the side of my mother, and talked with her of bygone days, and of friends of whom she had long lost sight, thus raising a train of thoughts in her mind that could only give birth to hopes she must have felt in her heart would never now be realised. It was noticeable also that the Count's eyes wandered continually in my direction. In consequence, I did not appear at my best. Knowing that Max was watching me, and that my mother was nervous on his account, I would have given anything to have been able to slip quietly from the room, and not make my appearance in public again until Marquart had left the house. This, however, was out of the question. The Count was our guest, and it behoved me to remain with him. How thankful, therefore, I was when the time arrived for us to say good-night, I must leave you to imagine. In silence Max and I made our way to our own quarter of the house. I wanted to say something to him, and yet I did not know with what words to approach him. I remembered the look I had seen on his face that afternoon, and dreaded lest an explosion were imminent. Such, however, was not the case. Having reached my bedroom, we paused to bid each other good-night. Then Max put his hand on my shoulder and looked sadly down at me. There was an expression upon his face that I had never seen there before. It told me that he had battled with himself, and that, after a severe struggle, his better nature had come out triumphant.
"Poor old Paul!" he said in a kindlier tone than I think he had ever yet spoken to me. "Come what may, we will be friends. Whatever the future may have in store for us, we will not quarrel, will we? Shall we swear to that?"
"Of course we will be friends, Max," I answered. "We'll never be anything else, happen what may. Why should we?"
He did not answer my question, but shook me by the hand, and then, with a little sigh, turned and went along the corridor to his own room, while I went into mine, vainly trying to arrive at an understanding of the situation. One thing, at any rate, was certain: Max and I had agreed not to quarrel. Yet instinctively I felt that it had cost him something to speak to me as he had done. Poor Max! Poor Max! I have known many men, but few with such honest hearts as yours.
A few minutes later I was in bed, but, as I soon discovered, not to sleep. The stirring events of the day had exercised a greater effect upon my brain than I had imagined. My interview with Max was still too fresh in my memory to permit of my settling down to slumber. My heart was upbraiding me for not having met his advances with a greater show of warmth. While he had been all generosity to me, it struck me that I had been almost cold to him. How devoutly I wished that Marquart had never come to England at all! Unconsciously, it is true, he had done his best to estrange my brother and myself; he had put all sorts of thoughts in my mother's head that had better not have been there, and for what purpose? For the life of me I could not tell. What a strange world it is, after all, and what blind bats we mortals may consider ourselves! While I was fretting and worrying because Max was unhappy, Destiny was slowly moving forward her chessmen, in the ranks of which we none of us knew what parts we were to play. Looking back at that time, I am struck by two strange facts. If my mother could see sufficiently far into the future to entertain vague fears upon Max's account, and the latter, forewarned by fate, perhaps, thought it necessary to make me swear that we should ever remain friends, how was it that they could not see further? Had they done so, Max would have – but there, we could not see, so what more remains to be said? Let me return, therefore, to the point at which I broke off.
I had retired to rest for upwards of an hour when I caught the sound of a door being shut further along the corridor, and a moment later of a soft footfall outside my room. I wondered who it could be, for there was no room save Max's and my own in that quarter of the house, and I did not know of any one who would be likely to visit it. As I listened, the footfalls were accompanied by something that was very like a sob. I could restrain my curiosity no longer, but, springing from my bed, opened the door and looked out. A figure was making its way towards the main portion of the house, and one glance was sufficient to show me that it was my mother. She had been to Max's room, and was returning to her own, weeping bitterly. Had there been the remotest chance of my catching her, I should have run after her and attempted to comfort her, but I was too late. Feeling as if I were the cause of her unhappiness, I returned to bed, and once more set to work to try and unravel the mystery that surrounded us. Had I been able to guess what the future had in store for us, I might have been able to set it right. I wonder if I should have had the pluck to do so? In my own heart I like to think it possible.
CHAPTER V
In course of time and in accordance with the parental plans, Max had joined a regiment, the 123rd Lancers, and was quartered in the Midlands, while I was to embark upon my quest for military distinction as soon as I should be old enough for a commission. Eventually I was gazetted to a lieutenancy in Her Majesty's Household Cavalry. This necessitated my living in town; a distinct change from the quiet country life I had hitherto led. I was fortunate in being kindly received by my brother officers, and as my father and mother's friends went out of their way to show me attention, it may be taken for granted that I was about as satisfied with my lot in life as a man could well be. Pannonia seemed slipping every day further into the background, and there were even times when I was scarcely conscious of her existence. Strangely enough, my mother, upon whom time was steadily laying her hand, seemed to be abandoning the notion that we should return, and to be resigning herself to the idea that England was likely to be her home for the remainder of her existence. And that leads me to venture upon a little piece of moralising, the first and last, I trust, I shall indulge in.
We are led to believe by the doctors that once in every seven years our physical being undergoes a change. Might this not be so in other matters? Be that as it may, there is certainly a strange concurrence in numbers. I was eight years old when the gipsy woman told me my fortune, and brought about the first trouble between Max and myself; I was sixteen when von Marquart made his appearance in England, and marked another epoch in my life; and if the line of coincidence may be followed further, I might also observe that I was twenty-four when the third, and, perhaps in a certain sense, the most important event occurred, for the reason that from it so many other issues were developed. At the same time I must confess it is not a subject upon which I care to dwell for any length of time. It has both a pleasant and painful side, and while I am willing to state that it has proved my greatest blessing, I am also bound to admit that it has inflicted upon me a wound, the scar of which time will never be able to obliterate. And this brings me to another argument. Surely it must have struck you how often the greatest events find their origin in the simplest things. I will supply an instance. John Noakes, a village mechanic, drops in one Sunday afternoon, having nothing better to do, to take a cup of tea with Matthew Stoakes, whose daughter Jane, by the way, boasts a pretty face and a comely figure. Hitherto, John has never thought of sweethearting, or indeed of anything else but his carpenter's bench, and his bit of garden behind the cottage. Somehow
