Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/100

 left it open when he went in for the latch-key. He had often seen the hanaper, and as often coveted it, and thought how much he could make of it; for among his acquaintances was a 'fence'"—(he had the grace to explain the word further on)—"and who was perfectly safe. He saw the oaken case; noiselessly unslid the clasp; and in a quarter of an hour after he left the house, the rich City merchant's presentation plate was seething in the smelting pot. He had timed his going out to accord just with Ashley's return—that he might show himself at the door of the room unconcerned and ignorant of the trouble there was within it; and while they were all too much dazed with their loss to know very clearly what was best to be done. No suspicion had ever fallen on him, though his rooms had been searched, as those of the other inmates of the house; and he had gone on living in his garret with honour and punctual payments until now. And now he wished to pay his last debt; when he could die in peace, and with an easy conscience." Easy conscience, the rogue!—and yet, who is to limit the mercy of the Infinite! God forgive us all, sinners that we are!

court of the Grand Duke of Eisenherz was dining, and dining moodily. It had been said by the cynics of the Grand Duke's capital that the only pleasant hour spent by the miserable court was the dinner hour; yet on this particular occasion even that hour was not very agreeable. The sickly little duke, a voluptuary, a fop, and a fool, as heartless as he was brainless, was testy, snappish, fretful, and splenetic, and in the most vexatious of tempers, complaining of the wine, swearing terrible oaths at his servants, kicking his pet spaniels, snubbing the Lord Chamberlain, almost barking at the minister of war, old iron-necked General Blossow, contradicting the Countess Schwellenberg, the lady of the robes, and refusing even to look in the direction of that old painted hag his stepmother, the duchess, who, reddening behind the thick coats of white and of red vermilion that choked up her wrinkles, was in as viperish a temper as could rise from the depths of a proud and evil heart, corrupted by all the petty ambitions of a small and depraved court in that demoralised age that immediately preceded the red deluge of the great revolution.

It was an October twilight, the few pale gleams of day lingered on the glasses, jugs, fruit dishes, and silver that strewed the vast table. Here and there the blade of a fruit knife, or the stopper of a decanter, glanced out of the gloom which elsewhere had risen slowly like a black flood, and submerged the German Pharaohling and all his host. The duke's face, pale, jaded, and fretful, could be dimly seen by the light of his powdered hair, but the duchess, who sat gaunt and erect, with her back to a central window, appeared a mere shapeless mass of darkness.

In all that concourse there were only two persons really natural and at their ease, and even these two were unhappy—more unhappy, indeed, than their fellows. The one was a beautiful young girl, who sat on the right hand of the duchess. Her tender face, irradiated with clusters of sunshiny hair, was spiritualised by a fine intelligence, and dignified by a certain calm power that gave almost a queenly character to a beauty otherwise specially gentle, loving, and womanly. She seemed unable and unwilling to conceal a certain foreboding of coming rank; but pride in that gentle heart was no evil passion. In that pure soil the poison plant had lost its venom, and glowed only with amaranthine flowers. The sceptre she would sway, those who loved her said, would be rather a branch of lilies than the hated sword.

The other was a pale intellectual-looking young man, dressed in a plain austere black velvet suit, reflecting light only from the cut steel buttons which glistened here and there in the last glimmer of day. Professor Mohrart was the court physician, an honour acquired by him at an early age, rather by dint of his acknowledged learning than any special regard borne him by either the dowager duchess or the duke, whom he disdained to flatter, and whose patronage of alchemy and astrology he strongly condemned. He spoke but little, and seemed lost in contemplation, except when now and then his large dark eyes fell with a mournful and tender regard on Mademoiselle Blossow, the daughter of the minister of war, and the duke's betrothed. There was indeed a rumour in Eisenherz that a few years before he had been attached to Mademoiselle Blossow, but that the stern old general, from ambitious motives, had refused him her hand. This dream was no doubt long past. He had about him now the preoccupied air of the student, and he seemed out of place among those heartless courtiers and self-conscious ladies of honour.

"We start then to-morrow, Frederick, to Schwarzstein," said the duchess, suddenly, in her shrill voice. "The coaches must be ready by three, to reach Graffenberg by dusk."

"My honoured and revered stepmother," said the young duke, with listless spitefulness, "you are only too good and kind in arranging the movements of our court. Since we last spoke to you we have changed our mind. I and the general take Beatrice with us to-morrow hunting in the forest at Eichenwald. That exercise will be too fatiguing for you, we fear. The chamberlain can go with you to your worthy cousin at Schwarzstein."