Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/159

 I told them what I had to tell about Hammerfeldt's death. Victoria broke into compassionate comments, my mother listened in silence.

"Poor old Hammerfeldt!" I ended reflectively.

"Where were you when you got the news?" asked Victoria.

I looked at her. Then I answered quietly:

"I was calling on the Countess von Sempach. I lunched with Wetter and went on there."

There was a pause. I believe that my candour was a surprise; perhaps it seemed a defiance.

"Did you tell the Prince that?" my mother asked.

"The Prince," I answered, "was not in a state to listen to anything that I might have said, not even to anything of importance."

"Fancy if he'd known! On his death-bed!" was Victoria's very audible whisper.

My mother looked at me with a despairing expression. I am unwilling to do either her or my sister an injustice, but I wondered then how much thought they were giving to the old friend we had lost. It seemed to me that they thought little of the man we knew, the man himself; not grief, but fear was dominant in them. Wetter's saying, "You're king at last," came into my mind. Perhaps their mood was intelligible enough and did not want excuse. They had seen in Hammerfeldt my schoolmaster; his hand was gone, and could no longer guide or restrain me. To one a son, to the other a younger brother, by both I was counted incapable of standing alone or choosing my own path. Hammerfeldt was gone; Wetter remained; the Countess von Sempach remained. There was the new