James Cabell: Gallantry. Dizain des Fetes Galantes

"Ma foi!" retorted the Grand Duke, and looked out upon the moonlit gardens; "as a loyal Noumarian, should I not rejoice at the good-fortune which is about to befall my country? Nay, Amalia, morality demands my abdication," he added, virtuously, "and for this once morality and I are in complete accord."

The Baroness von Altenburg was not disposed to argue the singularity of any such agreement, the while that she considered Louis de Soyecourt's latest scheme.

He had, as prologue to its elucidation, conducted the Baroness into the summer-house that his grandfather, good Duke Augustus, erected in the Gardens of Breschau, close to the Fountain of the Naiads, and had en tete-a-tete explained his notion. There were post-horses in Noumaria; there was also an unobstructed road that led you to Vienna, and thence to the world outside; and he proposed, in short, to quiet the grumbling of the discontented Noumarians by a second, and this time a final, vanishment from office and the general eye. He submitted that the Baroness, as a patriot, could not fail to weigh the inestimable benefit which would thus accrue to her native land.

Yet he stipulated that his exit from public life should be made in company with the latest lady on whom he had bestowed his variable affections; and remembering this proviso, the Baroness, without exactly encouraging or disencouraging his scheme, was at least not prone to insist on coupling him with morality.

She contented herself with a truism. "Indeed, your Highness, the example you set your subjects is atrocious."

"And yet they complain!" said the Grand Duke,—"though I swear to you I have always done the things I ought not to have done, and have left unread the papers I have signed. What more, in reason, can one ask of a grand duke?"

"You are indolent—" remonstrated the lady.

"You—since we attempt the descriptive," said his Highness,—"are adorable."

"—and that injures your popularity—"

"Which, by the way, vanished with my waist."

"—and moreover you create scandals—"

"'The woman tempted me,'" quoted the Grand Duke; and added, reflectively, "Amalia, it is very singular—"

"Nay, I am afraid," the Baroness lamented, "it is rather notoriously plural."

But the Grand Duke waved a dignified dissent, and continued, "—that I could never resist green eyes of a peculiar shade."

The Baroness, becoming vastly interested in the structure of her fan, went on, with some severity, "Your reputation—"

" De mortuis —" pleaded the Grand Duke.

"—is bad; and you go from bad to worse."

"By no means," said his Highness, "since when I was nineteen—"

"I will not believe it even of you!" cried the Baroness von Altenburg.

"I assure you," his Highness protested, gravely, "I was then a devil of a fellow! She was only twenty, and she, too, had big green eyes—"

"And by this late period," said the lady, "has in addition an infinity of grandchildren."

"I happen to be barely forty!" the Grand Duke said, with dignity.

"In which event the Almanachen dating, say, from 1710—"

"Are not unmarred by an occasional misprint. Truly I lament the ways of all typographers, and I will explain the cause of their depravity, in Vienna."

"But I am not going to Vienna."

"'And Sapphira,'" murmured his Highness, "'fell down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost!' So beware, Amalia!"

"I am not afraid, your Highness,—"

"Nor in effect am I. Then we will let Europe frown and journalists moralize, while we two gallop forward on the road that leads to Vienna and heaven?"

"Or—" the Baroness helpfully suggested.

"There is in this case no possible 'or.' Once out of Noumaria, we leave all things behind save happiness."

"Among these trifles, your Highness, is a duchy."

"Hein?" said the Grand Duke; "what is it? A mere dot on the map, a pawn in the game of politics. I give up the pawn and take—the queen."

"That is unwise," said the Baroness, with composure, "and, besides, you are hurting my hand. Apropos of the queen—the Grand Duchess—"

"Will heartily thank God for her deliverance. She will renounce me before the world, and in secret almost worship me for my consideration."

"Yet a true woman," said the Baroness, oracularly, "will follow a husband—"

"Till his wife makes her stop," said the little Grand Duke, his tone implying that he knew whereof he spoke.

"—and if the Grand Duchess loved you—"

"Oh, I think she would never mention it," said the Grand Duke, revolving in his mind this novel idea. "She has a great regard for appearances."

"Nevertheless—"

"She will be Regent"—and the Grand Duke chuckled. "I can see her now,—St. Elizabeth, with a dash of Boadicea. Noumaria will be a pantheon of the virtues, and my children will be reared on moral aphorisms and rational food, with me as a handy example of everything they should avoid. Deuce take it, Amalia," he added, "a father must in common decency furnish an example to his children!"

"Pray," asked the Baroness, "do you owe it to your children, then, to take this trip to Vienna—"

"Ma foi!" retorted the Grand Duke, "I owe that to myself."

"—and thereby break the Grand Duchess' heart?"

"Indeed," observed his Highness, "you appear strangely deep in the confidence of my wife."

Again the Baroness descended to aphorism. "All women are alike, your Highness."

"Ah, ah! Well, I have heard," said the Grand Duke, "that seven devils were cast out of Magdalene—"

"Which means—?"

"I have never heard of this being done to any other woman. Accordingly I deduce that in all other women must remain—"

"Beware, your Highness, of the crudeness of cynicism!"

"I age," complained the Grand Duke, "and one reaches years of indiscretion so early in the forties."

"You admit, then, discretion is desirable?"

"I admit that," his Highness said, with firmness, "of you alone."

"Am I, in truth," queried the Baroness, "desirable?" And in this patch of moonlight she looked incredibly so.

"More than that," said the Grand Duke—"you are dangerous. You are a menace to the peace of my Court. The young men make sonnets to your eyes, and the ladies are ready to tear them out. You corrupt us, one and all. There is de Chateauroux now—"

"I assure you," protested the Baroness, "Monsieur de Chateauroux is not the sort of person—"

"But at twenty-five," the Grand Duke interrupted, "one is invariably that sort of person."

"Phrases, your Highness!"

"Phrases or not, it is decided. You shall make no more bad poets."

"You will," said the Baroness, "put me to a vast expense for curl-papers."

"You shall ensnare no more admirers."

"My milliner will be inconsolable."

"In short, you must leave Noumaria—"

"You condemn me to an exile's life of misery!"

"Well, then, since misery loves company, I will go with you. For we should never forget," his Highness added, with considerable kindliness, "always to temper justice with mercy. So I have ordered a carriage to be ready at dawn."

The Baroness reflected; the plump little Grand Duke smiled. And he had reason, for there was about this slim white woman—whose eyes were colossal emeralds, and in show equivalently heatless, if not in effect,—so much of the baroque that in meditation she appeared some prentice queen of Faery dubious as to her incantations. Now, though, she had it—the mislaid abracadabra.

"I knew that I had some obstacle in mind—Thou shalt not commit adultery. No, your Highness, I will not go."

"Remember Sapphira," said the Grand Duke, "recall Herodias who fared happily in all things, and by no means forget the portmanteau."

"I have not the least intention of going—" the Baroness iterated, firmly.