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The Baroness von Altenburg was not disposed to argue the singularity of any such agreement, the while that she considered Louis de Soyecourt’s latest scheme.

He had, as prologue to its elucidation, conducted the Baroness into the summer-house that his grandfather, good Duke Augustus, erected in the Gardens of Breschau, close to the Fountain of the Naiads, and had en tête-à-tête explained his notion. There were post-horses in Noumaria; there was also an unobstructed road that led you to Vienna, and thence to the world outside; and he proposed, in short, to quiet the grumbling of the discontented Noumarians by a second, and this time a final, vanishment from office and the general eye. He submitted that the Baroness, as a patriot, could not fail to weigh the inestimable benefit which would thus accrue to her native land.

Yet he stipulated that his exit from public life should be made in company with the latest lady on whom he had bestowed his variable affections; and remembering this proviso, the Baroness, without exactly encouraging or disencouraging his scheme, was at least not prone to insist on coupling him with morality.

She contented herself with a truism. “Indeed, your Highness, the example you set your subjects is atrocious.”

“And yet they complain!” said the Grand Duke,–“though I swear to you I have always done the things I ought not to have done, and have left unread the papers I have signed. What more, in reason, can one ask of a grand duke?”

“You are indolent–” remonstrated the lady.

“You–since we attempt the descriptive,” said his Highness,–“are adorable.”

“–and that injures your popularity–“

“Which, by the way, vanished with my waist.”

“–and moreover you create scandals–“

“‘The woman tempted me,'” quoted the Grand Duke; and added, reflectively, “Amalia, it is very singular–“

“Nay, I am afraid,” the Baroness lamented, “it is rather notoriously plural.”

But the Grand Duke waved a dignified dissent, and continued, “–that I could never resist green eyes of a peculiar shade.”

The Baroness, becoming vastly interested in the structure of her fan, went on, with some severity, “Your reputation–“

“De mortuis–” pleaded the Grand Duke.

“–is bad; and you go from bad to worse.”

“By no means,” said his Highness, “since when I was nineteen–“

“I will not believe it even of you!” cried the Baroness von Altenburg.

“I assure you,” his Highness protested, gravely, “I was then a devil of a fellow! She was only twenty, and she, too, had big green eyes–“

“And by this late period,” said the lady, “has in addition an infinity of grandchildren.”

“I happen to be barely forty!” the Grand Duke said, with dignity.

“In which event the Almanachen dating, say, from 1710–“

“Are not unmarred by an occasional misprint. Truly I lament the ways of all typographers, and I will explain the cause of their depravity, in Vienna.”

“But I am not going to Vienna.”

“‘And Sapphira,'” murmured his Highness, “‘fell down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost!’ So beware, Amalia!”

“I am not afraid, your Highness,–“

“Nor in effect am I. Then we will let Europe frown and journalists moralize, while we two gallop forward on the road that leads to Vienna and heaven?”

“Or–” the Baroness helpfully suggested.

“There is in this case no possible ‘or.’ Once out of Noumaria, we leave all things behind save happiness.”

“Among these trifles, your Highness, is a duchy.”

“Hein?” said the Grand Duke; “what is it? A mere dot on the map, a pawn in the game of politics. I give up the pawn and take–the queen.”

“That is unwise,” said the Baroness, with composure, “and, besides, you are hurting my hand. Apropos of the queen–the Grand Duchess–“

“Will heartily thank God for her deliverance. She will renounce me before the world, and in secret almost worship me for my consideration.”

“Yet a true woman,” said the Baroness, oracularly, “will follow a husband–“

“Till his wife makes her stop,” said the little Grand Duke, his tone implying that he knew whereof he spoke.

“–and if the Grand Duchess loved you–“

“Oh, I think she would never mention it,” said the Grand Duke, revolving in his mind this novel idea. “She has a great regard for appearances.”