ON the drive back to Zweitenbourg Aloyse’s spirits gradually rose. He ceased to see that group with such painful distinctness; Moltzahn and presently Dr. Kirschner flattered him on his marksmanship. Pshaw! it had been a mere coincidence that Grafton had shot him precisely as he said he would. He forced himself to remember more and more vividly Grafton’s impudence—and impudence to a Traubenheim! And impudence to a Traubenheim in an affair of the heart!—and that affair one in which the lady was also a Traubenheim. He had but meted out just punishment for an assault upon his own honor, the honor of his wife-to-be, the honor of his house.

In the last two or three miles he was hilarious, boasting boisterously—he had had something to drink and nothing to eat—of his prowess and of how all Traubenheims always thus served the impudent enemies of their house. And Moltzahn, concealing his contempt and disgust, and Dr. Kirschner, full of the loyalty of a devoted subject, urged him on. He set the doctor down at his house and Moltzahn at his club—Moltzahn did not dare show himself at The Castle. Then he drove on with a growing appetite. He reached The Castle at seven o’clock, just in time for his regular breakfast with his father.The Grand Duke was invariably in a vile humor in the morning; he ate so much and exercised so little that he slept badly. He insisted on his son always breakfasting alone with him, and, under the pretence of training him for the throne, wreaked his ill-humor upon him. Aloyse hurriedly changed from the plain clothes in which he had fought to an undress uniform, and flew to the breakfast-room. He was in high spirits; at last he had done something which his father would applaud. As he entered, Casimir looked at him sourly. He brought his heels together and saluted. Then he advanced, as usual, bent his knee, but put his left hand, instead of his right, under his father’s right hand extended for him to kiss.

“What is the matter with your right hand?” screamed the Grand Duke.Aloyse jumped and shivered like a guilty child and his wits scattered. He held out his right hand in its sling, stupidly staring at it.

“Speak—and no lies!”

“In a duel,” he stammered.

The Grand Duke pushed back his chair from the table. His look was so frightful that terror gave speed to Aloyse’s tongue. “I challenged the American, father—and killed him,” he said, the last phrase explosively. “I shot him through the heart.”

Casimir brought his chair close to the table again, lifted his cup of coffee, and drew in several draughts, each with a loud, sucking sound. “Eat your breakfast!” he said, in a sharp but not unkindly tone. “You must be hungry; have one of my peaches.”Casimir’s peaches were his especial dish. They were grown at great expense under his own eye, and no one else was permitted to have them. In all his life Aloyse could remember only one occasion on which his father had offered to share his peaches; it was twenty years before, when Aloyse, seated in a high-chair at that table, had seen the Prime Minister take one at Casimir’s request; the reason, as Aloyse learned long afterwards, was that the Prime Minister had saved the Traubenheims their title of “Royal Highness,” which was gravely threatened. Though he detested peaches, Aloyse ate the peach greedily, swelling with pride and importance.

Prudence bade him say no more of his achievement; but vanity and a loose tongue impelled him to seek further flatteries from his father. He looked at the old man’s sardonic, yellow face several times before he ventured to speak.

“I ask to be permitted to tell Erica myself,” he said.

His father stopped eating and raised his head from his plate. He seemed to have concentrated all the acidity of his nature in his face. The color rose in Aloyse’s cheeks and mounted his brow until his features were all ablaze and a sweat was standing on his forehead.

“You propose to tell the woman you wish to marry, and whose consent you must get—you propose to tell her that you have murdered her lover.” Casimir said the words slowly, without accent, quietly. Then he put his face down until it was again hovering within a few inches of his plate.

There was a long pause, and Casimir spoke again. “Every day you remind me more and more of your grand-uncle.” Aloyse remembered his grand-uncle—the Grand Duke Wilhelm, a jibbering idiot, who sat all day on the floor in a corner gnawing his nails and his great whiskers.

Another long pause, and Casimir spoke again. “Go to your apartments, and don’t leave them until I summon you. And never permit a syllable about your duel to escape your lips. Deny it; if necessary, swear you know nothing about it. If possible, she must never know how he died or that he’s dead. Be off!”

Later in the morning Casimir read the report of the chief of his secret police on Grafton’s last hours in Zweitenbourg. His secret agents said that Grafton had communicated with no one except an American tourist—an obviously casual acquaintance and talk; that Ernestine had not moved from her home over the bake-shop in Emperor Ferdinand Second Street. And when the chief came to him and in great confusion confessed that his men had lost Grafton between Zweitenbourg and Venice, the Grand Duke was sarcastic but not angry. “Drop the matter,” he said.

He sent Baron Zeppstein to inquire how Her Serene Highness did, and whether she would permit His Royal Highness to do himself the honor of waiting upon her. As the answer was favorable, Casimir put on his most paternal face and went to Erica’s apartments. She was all fire and indignation.

“First,” she said, “I demand that Your Royal Highness send away that woman and that soldier.”“Certainly, my child.” And he went to the door and himself ordered them away. As the woman was leaving he called her back. He returned to Erica. “Shall I send for your own maid?” he said. “This woman can fetch her. Yes?” And he told the woman to bring Ernestine forthwith.

“The peril is past,” he said, standing beside Erica and laying his hand on her shoulder. “I know what youth and hot blood are; I, too, have dreamed of happiness. But our rank means duty; to you it means Aloyse and the future of our ancient house. You think I’m harsh, child, but it is the kindness of experience.”

Erica looked scorn at him. “The grand-ducal house of Traubenheim,” she said, “has the throne. The ducal house has the private wealth. Yes, my dear uncle, you are, indeed, kind—to yourself and Aloyse. You know—none better—that your son is an ignorant, brutish fool. You know that this life here is dull and repellent—a hell on earth, a mockery of a life, a torture-pen of yawning and meaningless routine. Don’t flatter my intelligence, my dear uncle, by talking of your kindness and my duty.” She started up. “And sooner or later I shall go where love and life call me,” she exclaimed, passionately.

A ghost of a sardonic smile flitted over the yellow old face at this reference to Grafton. Then he said, sternly, but without harshness: “We shall send the heralds into the town this afternoon to proclaim the marriage for Monday. We shall announce in the Gazette that the Inheriting Grand Duke is ill, and that, because of your great love for him and his for you, the marriage has been hastened. And on Monday you will be married.”

The old man spoke with much dignity—the dignity of one all his life accustomed to being implicitly obeyed, of one descended from a long line of arbitrary rulers. And although Erica denounced and denied his command with all the strength of her soul, his words sounded to her like clods upon a coffin.

“As I said,” he went on, in a gentler voice, “the peril is past. That young adventurer, that young picture dealer from across the water”—he laughed—“his impudence was refreshing! I admire audacity; he almost deserved to win; I’m not surprised that you were almost swept off your feet. But he will not annoy you further. He’s gone, my child; he took himself away last night. So, feeling that you were no longer in danger of being annoyed and humiliated by his impertinences, I have removed the guards.”

“Then I am free?”

“It would be well,” said Casimir, with faint emphasis, “for you to keep within The Castle for the present; of course, you must have your walks under proper protection.”

He extended his hand for her to kiss it. For the first time in her life the act seemed not a ceremony but a degradation. “I begin anew here,” she said to herself. She pretended not to see his hand. He slipped away with his soft, sliding shuffle. When he walked in that fashion those who knew him feared him.