Without pausing for a reply he left the room.
The Queen wiped her lips in a certain grim satisfaction.
“Well,” she remarked, “he is capable of keeping his word.”
Count Piper glanced at the downcast and weary face of Viktoria Falkenberg; she sat next to him and spoke, under the little murmur of talk that had arisen since the King’s departure.
“He will do, your master,” she said, “he is quite heartless, quite just, and inhumanly strong.”
“Our interview was not what you think. We have really no interest in each other.”
Count Piper could not pretend to understand her; nor did he really care to explore the intricacies of feminine sentiment and feminine intrigue; if Viktoria Falkenberg was not going to influence King Karl she ceased to in the least concern Count Piper.
“His Majesty will help Gottorp, you think?” asked the Duchess.
He hastened his dinner that he might rejoin the King, who was already, he knew, in his cabinet.
And there he found him, standing by the window through which the long Northern twilight fell into the narrow apartment; his arms were locked over the back of a high chair and he leant forward, in the attitude of one dreaming.
Though he was so splendid in his magnificent youth there was something in his demeanor more terrifying than lovable, and his proud noble face was marred by the ugly smile that curved his full lips.
As soon as the Count entered he spoke, without raising his head.
“I shall go to war,” he said, and his voice that was always expressionless had a hard ring in its clear quality. “I shall return Gottorp to his duchy and I shall engage Denmark. Saxony must be brought from the throne of Poland, and from these I menace this Emperor of Muscovy--this Czar of the Russias.”
“I believe,” replied Count Piper, with perfect sincerity, “that your Majesty can do these things.”
“I believe that I can,” said Karl. “The most dangerous of my foes is Russia. He affects to be a mighty man, does he not?”
It was plain that this greatness of the Czar rankled with him; it was almost as if he had a personal hatred of this political enemy of his country whom he had never seen; this was the only person towards whom he had ever evinced the faintest anger or jealousy.
“The Czar is great,” replied the Count, “but your Majesty might be greater.”