style="font-size:15px;"> “I am, and I wish you were telling me the mystery. Do, dear. You look awake, only rather odd.”
“It would be strange if I didn’t look odd. Dal says – Dal says – ”
“What has he been doing? Getting engaged?”
“No. It is – your Emperor, not Dal, who talks of being engaged.”
“Oh,” said Virginia, trying not to speak blankly, trying not to flush, trying not to show in any way the sudden sick pain in her heart.
Of course she was not in love with him. Of course, though she had been childish enough long ago to make him her ideal, and foolishly faithful enough to keep him so, she had always known that he would never be more to her than a Shadow Emperor. Some day he would marry one of those other Royal girls who were so much more suitable than she; that would be natural and right, as she had more than once told herself with no conscious pang. But now that the news had come – now that the Royal girl was actually chosen, and she must hear the letter and read about the happy event in the newspapers, it was different. She felt suddenly cold and sick under the blow; hurt and defrauded, and even jealous. She knew that she would hate the girl – some wretched, commonplace girl, with stick-out teeth, perhaps, or no figure, and no idea of the way to wear her clothes or do her hair.
But she swallowed hard, and clenched her fingers under the voluminous letter about Dandy Dinmont. “Oh, so our friend is going to be married?” she remarked lightly.
“That depends,” replied the Grand Duchess, laughing mysteriously, with a catch in her voice, as if she had been a nervous girl. “That depends. You must guess – but no, I won’t tease you. My dear, my dear, after Dal’s letter, coming as it has in the midst of such a conversation, I shall be a firm believer in telepathy. This letter, on its way to us, must have put the thoughts into our minds, and the words on our tongues. It may be that the Emperor of Rhaetia will marry; it may not. For, my sweet, beautiful girl, it depends upon – you.”
“Me?” The voice did not sound to Virginia like her own. Was she too, dreaming? Were they both in a dream?
“He wishes to marry you.”
All the letters dropped from Virginia’s lap, dropped, and fluttered to the grass slowly, like falling rose leaves. Scarcely knowing what she did, she clasped her hands over the young bosom shaken with the sudden throbbing of her heart. Perhaps such a betrayal of feeling by a Royal maiden decorously sued (by proxy) for her hand, was scarcely correct; but Virginia had no thought for rules of conduct, as laid down for her too often by her mother.
“He wishes to marry – me?” she echoed, dazedly. “Why?”
“Providence must have drawn your inclination toward him, dearest. It is indeed a romance. Some day, no doubt, it will be told to the world in history.”
“But how did he – ” Virginia broke off, and began again: “Did he tell this to Dal, and ask him to write you?”
“Not – not precisely that,” admitted the Grand Duchess, her face changing from satisfaction to uneasiness. For Virginia was difficult in some ways, though adorable in others, and held such peculiar ideas about life – inherited from her American grandmother – that it was impossible to be sure how she would receive the most ordinary announcements.
The Princess’s rapt expression faded, like the passing of dawn.
“Not precisely that?” she repeated. “Then what – how – ”
“Well, perhaps – though it’s not strictly the correct thing – you had better read your brother’s letter for yourself.”
Virginia put her hands behind her back with a childish gesture, and a frightened look came into the eyes which at most times gazed bravely upon the world. “I – somehow I can’t,” she said. “Please tell me.”
“To begin with, then, you know what an admiration Dal has felt for Count von Breitstein, ever since that diplomatic visit the Rhaetian Chancellor paid to Hungaria. The fancy seemed to be mutual; but then, who could ever resist Dal, if he wanted to be liked? The Chancellor has written to him from time to time, and Dal has quite enjoyed the correspondence; the old man can be witty as well as cynical if he chooses, and Dal says he tells good stories. Now it seems (in the informal way in which such affairs are usually put forward) that Count von Breitstein has written confidentially to Dal, as our only near male relative, asking how your family would regard an alliance between Leopold and you, or if we have already disposed of your hand. At last the Emperor is inclined to listen to his Chancellor’s advice and marry, and you, as a Protestant Princess – ”
“A Protestant Princess, indeed!” cried Virginia. “I protest against being approached by him on such terms.”
The face of the Grand Duchess was darkened by the gloom of her thoughts. “My daughter,” she exclaimed mildly, yet despairingly, “it’s not possible that when this wonderful chance – this unheard of chance – this chance that you were praying for – actually falls into your hands, you will throw it away for – for a sentimental, school-girl scruple?”
“I was not praying for it,” said Virginia. “I’m sure, Mother, you would have considered it most bold in me to pray for it. And I didn’t. I was only refusing other chances.”
“Well, at all events, you have this one now. It is yours.”
“Not in the one way I should have loved to see it come. Oh, Mother, why does the Emperor want to marry me? Isn’t there some other reason than just because I’m a proper, Protestant Princess?”
“Of course,” insisted the Grand Duchess, faintly encouraged. “Dal mentions several most excellent reasons in his letter – if you would only take them sensibly.”
“I should like to hear them, at all events,” answered Virginia.
“Well, you see the Empress of Rhaetia must be a Protestant, and there aren’t many eligible Protestant girls who would be acceptable to the Rhaetians – girls who would be popular with the people. Oh, I have finished about that! You need not look so desperate. Besides, Dal explains that Leopold is a young man who dominates all around him. He wishes to take for his bride a girl who could not by any possibility herself be heiress to a throne. Dal fancies that his desire is to mold his wife, and therefore to take a girl without too many important and importunate relatives; for he is not one who would dream of adding to his greatness by using the wealth or position of a woman. He has all he needs, or wants, of that sort. And then, Dal reminds me, Leopold is very partial to England, who helped Rhaetia passively, in the time of her trouble eight years ago. The fact that you have lived in England and had an English education, would be favorably regarded both by Leopold and his Chancellor. And though I’ve never allowed you to have a photograph taken, since you were a child (I hate seeing young girls’ faces in the newspapers and magazines; even though they are Royal, their features need not be public property!) and you have lived here in such seclusion that you’ve been little seen, still, the rumor has reached Rhaetia that you are – good to look at. Leopold has been heard to say that, whatever else the future Empress of Rhaetia may be, he won’t give his people an ugly woman to reign over them. And so, altogether – ”
“And so, altogether, my references being satisfactory, at a pinch I might do for the place,” cut in Virginia, with the hot, impatient rebellion of her youth. “Oh, Mother, you think me mad or a fool, I know; and perhaps I am mad; yet not mad enough not to see that it would be a great thing, a wonderful thing to be asked in marriage by the One Man in my world, if – ah, that great ‘if’
