I. A. R. Wylie

“ Give them to me—your poems, princess, and I will set them to my music.”
She stirred, awake for an instant to the passion beneath the low, suppressed tones. Then the quiet and the magic of the half light closed in again over her.
“It could never be,” she said. “If we dare to dream, it must be for ourselves alone.”
“No one need ever know, princess. They shall go out unnamed into the world—as songs of prisoners and captives—of those who may not sing aloud. But the greatest tenors in the world shall give them back to you as if you were at last alive—a human woman, loving and beloved. ”

“ The grand duchess turned her head, and for an instant her eyes met the man's inspired glance unseeingly. Then, as if suddenly awakened, she turned toward her lady in waiting. The Countess Epernay still sat bolt upright, her hands clasped in front of her, the firelight playing on her grimly disapproving features; but for all her uprightness and disapproval, the countess slept the sleep of the just and bored.
Ivan Maubert laughed softly.
“That is how it will be,” he said. “That is all the understanding I may hope for.”
“I have understood,” the grand duchess answered. ”

“ He detested the solution. He detested the necessity for a solution. He detested this boorish block, so obviously ill at ease in the fanciful uniform, so obviously aloof, so obviously contemptuous of his surroundings, so sullenly indifferent to the fragile, beautiful girl who had become his wife. His excellency detested him very cordially, and on account of this violent emotion, he grew more rigid, more expressionless, and it was only some time later that his passionate eyes moved in the direction of his new-born dislike.
He perceived then that the prince consort was sound asleep. ”

“ He glanced out of the corner of his eye at her consort, who sat staring unconcernedly down at the fauteuils with their lines of many-colored uniforms. “And the people feel themselves at one with your royal highness, in happiness and in sorrow. No ruler has a greater reward than that.”
She was silent for a moment. Her blue eyes—intensely blue even in the artificial light—passed over the house and came to rest, as his excellency's had done, on the man beside her, and there they lost color and grew cold and expressionless, as if they were looking at a total stranger. ”

“ The grand duchess is so young, so romantic, so ignorant of life. Her life hitherto has been full of dreams——”
“And stupid, dull realities.” The prince consort held out the hand that wore the wedding ring, and considered it somberly. “What did this man boast, count?”
“That the songs were written to him—that they were written by the grand duchess!”
His excellency, forgetting the laws that governed his life, sank down in a chair by the table and covered his face with his hands. He did not trust himself to look at the man opposite him. ”

“ The pride you talk of is the poor treasure of the puppets who have tried to twist us to their own likeness. But I am a man. Do you think that if you loved me, I should care if you were ten times more the grand duchess, and I ten times more your subject? ”

“ The songs at the court concert? Fine, weren't they, my would-be Caruso? Even you couldn't help putting some fire into them. Passion, eh? The outpourings of a loving woman's heart, eh? Ah, I thought you'd like them!”
And all the time he stared at his excellency, an ugly little smile at the corners of his lips. An uncomfortable silence hung over the table. The tenor fidgeted.
“Yes, even I couldn't spoil them,” he said, with the sarcasm of wounded vanity. “We were just wondering who composed them.”
“I wrote the music,” said Maubert. ”

“ Maubert lifted the toy revolver.
“Stay where you are! I also am in earnest! I am a man who has always gratified his passions at all costs, and I hate you at this moment to a degree that makes any cost insignificant. I warn you!” Still he could hear his opponent fumbling his way toward the door under which the light gleamed, and he rose stealthily. “Your royal highness, I have no desire to shoot you down like that; I am not a coward. I am what you Englishmen would call a sportsman. You say you are armed. Very well. The love poems of her royal highness are on the table. Fight me for them!” ”

“ I have dreamed of flowers and music, but never of such music and flowers as you have given me. It is all color and light and life; and the people seem glad. They look at me—or do I imagine it?—as if they really cared for me. ”

“ As you are an old friend, countess, I will even confess to you that I distinctly felt my old, very unimpressionable, heart beat quicker.”
“Your excellency could not have uttered a more annihilating criticism. This is no place for plebeian passions. My dear count, if we are going to have that kind of thing in our midst—love, kisses, longings, and heartaches—there will be nothing left to separate us from the working classes.” ”

“ She turned to him, her fair head erect, her wet eyes and cheeks bright with passion. “It is not true. You are going because you have reached the limit of your endurance. You are as human as I am. They try to turn us into little wooden dolls, to strut and bow at their will—but we're not dolls—we're flesh and blood—all of us alike. ”

“ The prince consort bent down and gathered up the loose sheets of manuscript and gave them to the grand duchess, with a little military bow.
“They are safer in your keeping,” he said gently. “I am sorry that I have stained them. They are very beautiful.” He offered her his arm, and she accepted it blindly, clinging to him. “Good night, and good-by, Monsieur Maubert. Your music was a fitting accompaniment. But it is the tragedy of life that some harmonies are forbidden us. ”

“ In this dry, soulless world of arid minds and petrified hearts, you have created your own world—you have made yourself an image of love as it must be to all those who truly live. And I know that your image must be as beautiful as the sunrise. ”

“ They are human.”
“Yes; they are the love songs of a human woman,” he said. “That is why I did not think you would like them.”
They were still smiling, faintly, restrainedly, as they had been taught to smile, but a new metal had crept into their subdued voices. The color ebbed and flowed in the grand duchess' pale cheeks.
“You do not think I am human?” she asked.
“I think you are a grand duchess.”
The tenor was turning over the leaves of another song. Seeing that the royal couple were exchanging comments, the court rustled and whispered. The grand duchess looked at the man beside her. ”

“ His excellency, by dint of keeping one hand on his knee and the other on the plush vamp at all public functions for twenty years, and never losing his impassivity even before his valet, had won a reputation which wavered between that of Machiavelli and that of Bismarck. Even the bigwigs from the courts of the great suitors were rather afraid of him, not knowing quite what his unalterable moral and physical pose concealed; and the Lunévillians themselves, quiet, self-satisfied folk, would have gone down fighting to the last man rather than lose their diplomatic jewel. ”

“ He sprang to his feet with the violence and swiftness of a tiger freeing itself from a long and patient restraint, his face so black and convulsed that it was scarcely recognizable. “Your happiness—his confidence—these two are synonyms, I gather. You think I was mad. Well, you are mad, your royal highness—mad to come here. You child! You think you can twist us around your white fingers and play havoc with our lives and whistle us to heel! You've been brought up in a bad school for dealing with living men. Pull the strings of your marionettes, but don't play with flesh and blood!” ”

“ A PRINCE OF MARIONETTES
By I. A. R. Wylie
HIS excellency sat upright in his corner of the box, one hand clenched lightly on the plush-upholstered vamp, the other resting on his knee. Beyond bending his head to catch the remarks of his neighbor, the wife of a Balkan prime minister, very décollettée and heavily incrusted with diamonds, he scarcely once changed his pose, and the most careful scrutiny of his rather waxen countenance would not have revealed either amusement or boredom—or, indeed, any recognizable human emotion. ”

“ The grand duchess rose. She appeared to have forgotten his excellency's presence, for she went over to the window and stood looking into the park beneath, and did not speak until his excellency himself, on the strength of a lifelong service, coughed delicately. Then she turned to him, smiling.
“Forgive me, Paul. I'm a little tired. Figures always tire me. I suppose I'm very childish and foolish. Please, when you go, will you ask the Countess Epernay to receive Monsieur Maubert and to attend me during his recital?” ”

“ His excellency nearly smiled.
“Monsieur Maubert is not likely to bring about such a catastrophe,” he reassured her.
“Not that catastrophe, perhaps, but another. Count, that man is too much here. People are beginning to talk. The grand duchess is young—she should be warned.”
“My dear countess, the grand duchess is a great music lover. Nothing is more natural——”
“We are not here to be natural,” the countess interposed sharply. ”

“ His excellency rose up, and sat down again, mastering himself in time. A young violinist from the court orchestra had sprung to his feet.
“You'd better be careful what you say, Maubert!” he said violently. “We've no such thing as lese majesty here, but we've other things.”
“Well?” Maubert laughed in his face. “You asked me a question, Hotspur. I've given you an answer. Now you quarrel with it.”
“Because it's a lie! You must be mad, or drunk, to dare——”
“I am neither, good young man; and I would shoot you like the puppy you are if it would not amuse me more to hear you apologize.” ”

“ In a word, his excellency was a little great man in a little great principality.
And now he stood at the zenith of his career. He had solved the problem that had secretly worried the good Lunévillians ever since, eighteen years ago, the toy cannons on the castle mound had announced the fact that the grand duchess had given birth to a daughter, and consequently—since Lunéville cared nothing for the Salic law—to a future ruler. ”

“ In the distance the crunch and rumble of the departing carriages and the clash of arms as the sentries sprang to the salute sounded faintly. Before her lay the great park, its black density making the unlit sky seem pale and luminous by contrast. A few feet beneath her lay the garden, with its borders of sober autumn flowers. ”

“ His excellency smiled his pleasant, unmeaning smile.
“Maubert, from the Russian Opera House, madame. He has come here to present his new opera. A great musician, I am told, though I myself am no judge. To-night he conducts here for the first time.”
“Ah!” She leaned her wonderfully molded chin in the palm of her hand and gazed down dreamily into the empty orchestra. “Yes, I think he must be a very good musician. He has a wonderful head. There is an old Roman statue in my gallery with just such a profile. Ah, you are smiling at me, your excellency! ”

“ What is she to you, or you to her, that you should take it upon yourself to interfere?”
“You may judge for yourself on the last point. What my wife is to me is my own affair. I am speaking to you as man to man, and I am in earnest. ”

“ The people take a natural pleasure in the life of their ruler, and there might be some disappointment, and among the less ruly a certain amount of criticism——”
“I am, as you know, anxious to do everything desirable,” the prince consort interrupted placidly.
He made as if to resume his seat, but the grand duchess lifted her right hand quickly, peremptorily, and there was a delicate flush in her cheeks that was almost of anger.
“Please—that is not in the least necessary. I am not driving out to-day. Monsieur Maubert is coming to play his opera to me ”

“ To-morrow night—the poems, in her royal highness' handwriting.”
“Where does this man live?”
“No. 35, Rue de Cambert.”
The prince nodded to himself.
“You ought to go home and rest, count,” he said gently. “You are upset. It would never do for you to show that face to the world.”
“Sir!”
“People might almost believe that you were capable of emotion—pain, love—Heaven knows what! They might even begin to doubt the value of all masks and puppets, and to believe that most of us are human.” ”