CHAPTER XXXI
CARLOTA
"Der sicherste Weg nicht sehr ungluecklich zu sein ist das Glueck nicht erwarten."--_Schopenhauer._
Everybody he met seemed to twist Driscoll's business into a vitalpersonal issue, and it did not take him long to place M. Eloin. Thesupercilious Belgian of the rancid brow, as Driscoll mentally describedhim, wanted the perpetuation of the empire, and he wanted it for thevery simple reason that the favorite of a realmless prince does notamount to much. Hence he intrigued for the acceptance of Driscoll'soffer and for the confusion of Jacqueline.
A small escort of Belgians joined him and Driscoll at the garita, orlittle customs house, on the edge of the City. Accompanying them was aburly priest with a head shaped like a pear. The padre had very smalleyes for so large a man, but they were exceedingly bright and rovedadventurously. They would settle with crafty calculation on Eloin timeand again, though his manner toward the favorite was always a thing ofhumble deference.
"His Dutch Holiness from Murgie's!" Driscoll observed to himself.
But there might be an ecclesiastical college along, for all theMissourian cared. His own thoughts were battalions. "When it's over, oneway or another," he kept deciding, "I'll speak to her, yes I will!What's there to be afraid of? W'y, she's--only a girl." It might be anunfair advantage, his not dying after the confession in her farewellletter to him, but he would have her, he would have her! The Lord begood to him, he _had_ to have her!
Late in the afternoon they arrived at the quaint old Aztec village ofCuernavaca, which had been the country seat of Cortez, and was now thatof a second fair god and a second Hernando. After dismounting at thehotel near the conquistador's palace, Eloin hurried Driscoll across theplaza into the beautiful Italian gardens where Maximilian made his home.At the villa, Charlotte's own residence in the gardens, Eloin hadhimself announced to Her Majesty. The American reflected that womenseemed to have a great deal to do with the reigning business. In thedrawing room, the Empress received them.
She was a slender young woman whose lips were thin and proud, whose eyeswere dark and lustrous. Her hair was black and very heavy, coiled in theold fashioned style away from a high forehead that was beautifullywhite. She could not be older than twenty-five, and there was even agirlishness in her bearing. But she had a steadiness of gaze--one eyeseemed the least heavy lidded--and there was a firmness to the slightlylarge mouth, which gave an impression of strong lines to what was reallya soft, oval face. Yet the temperament could not be mistaken. She was awoman of acute nerves. She was tensely strung, inordinately sensitive.
Driscoll believed now what he had heard, that the Empire fared betterwhen Charlotte was regent and her lord on a journey. Maximilian dreamed,while she realized. The Hapsburg cadet, gazing over the Adriatic fromthe marble steps of Miramar, had brooded fondly on what Destiny musthold for him. He would be king of a Poland born again among the nations.Then Louis Napoleon whispered of another throne in the building.Whereupon _she_ began the study of Spanish; _she_ decided herhalf hesitating spouse to accept, however loftily they both scorned theadventurer who helped them to it.
Carlota, for so the natives called her, amiably greeted the Missourian.She was a woman of tact, and though one Din Driscoll was for her asimpersonal a thing as some opportune event, yet events must be neatlyturned to account.
"His Majesty and I have discussed your presence in our country, sir,"she began in English, "and feeling that he desires to see you again, Irequested M. Eloin to bring you to Cuernavaca."
"Why, thank you, ma'am," said Driscoll.
She all but reproved the form of address. But, for her at least, commonsense was beginning to prevail. The rigid court punctilio, largely ofher own enthusiastic designing, had gone hard with her. Her husband hadproved no more than consistent to the medieval revival. He was but trueto that old chivalry which distinguished between the divinely fairdamsel to be won and the mere woman won already. He was the monarch, shehis consort. Classifying others, the Empress found herself classified.He was her liege, and she might not even enter his presence unannounced.But how much happier was she in the blithe sailor prince who camea-wooing, who wooed for love, in accordance with that same ancientchivalry!
A princess of the Blood, of the House of Orleans, Charlotte had had thatnicest poise of good breeding, the kind that is unconscious. But hereamong the Mexicans, she had to proclaim a superiority not taken forgranted, and the nice poise was gone. In her the generations--Henry IV.,the Grand Monarch, and all of that stately line--in her they stooped.And an element of sheerest vulgarity, as plebeian as a Jew's diamond,crept in perforce. Poor tarnished escutcheon of Orleans! Poor princessof the Blood, become menial with scouring it! She was weary. Over thisNew World there floated too much of obscuring democratic dust. So sheallowed "ma'am," like a homely fleck, to settle unreproved on theancestral doorplate.
Driven to expediency for her very Empire's sake, she herself trampled onthe Ritual. Waiving all formalities, they would go and seek out HisMajesty. He must be somewhere in the gardens, perhaps beside the pondwith its fringe of deep shadows from the trees. There they expected tofind him, breathing the air of orange blossoms, gazing enraptured intothe water, and on the gold fish and the swans and the fountains. Hewould be teasing Nature for a sonnet's inspiration.
Driscoll went ahead, since Carlota and Eloin talked earnestly in French,intent on their plot for the persuasion of the Emperor. But as theAmerican parted a clump of oleanders and laden rosebushes that hid thelittle lake, he stopped, his eyes wide on something just beyond. In theinstant he fell back, and confronted the other two with such a look onhis face that both started in vague alarm. They saw the sickened look ofone who turns from a revolting sight. A wretch stricken suddenly blindmay know at once the fact of a terrible grief, yet he cannot quite atfirst gather to himself the fullness of the horror. He is only awarethat, afterward, the meaning will slowly take shape, like a graduallydarkening despair.
Driscoll gazed uncertainly at the Empress, as though she had somehowarrested his thoughts. Then, as a strong man rushing from danger, hecomprehended that here was a frail woman near the same peril.
"You will not go, ma'am," he ordered in a kind of terror for her.
Eloin had already hastened on to the screen of roses. Being a fellow ofthe arras and closets, he scented a royal secret. The Empress lifted hershoulders and would have followed, but Driscoll did not hesitate. Hetook her by the elbow and gently turned her the other way.
"You must not!" he said again, with that same scared manner on him.
She bridled indignantly, but when she saw how white he was, and howearnest, something there awed her. In a flash she understood. Her lipcurled, baring teeth of the purest pearl, and a sneer quivered on thehighbred nostrils. But suddenly, in piteous tumult, her breast heavedonce, and betrayed the wound. It gave him to know the knighthood whichcovets blows in a woman's behalf. But she, with a will that held him inadmiration and reverence for her, spoke to him, and her tone was even,was unbroken.
"I dare say you are right," she said, and turned to retrace her steps.But, as if to drink deeper of the bitter cup, she paused, and forcedherself to a last word.
"I suppose I should thank you," she went on, and her eyes, still dry oftears, were lustrous as they lifted to his, "but a gentleman--and I havenever known one more than you, sir, this minute past--will understandthat I cannot--There, I am going now. And after--after this that youhave just beheld, I shall never see you again, sir. Alas, it's the morepity. Such as you are rare, even in--in my world."
Driscoll watched her blankly as she left him, her head poised high, herstep as slow as dignity itself. His own face was cruelly drawn, with thefirst sickened ghastliness still on him. He stumbled to a bench, and satdown. But there was nothing to think about, nothing he could thinkabout, just then. Yet his brain was full to throbbing, and he had noconsciousness of where he was, nor of the passage of time.
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