“You have done all that I expected--more.” Erica was blushing and looked extremely guilty. She felt that Aloyse and Moltzahn had outrageously insulted her, but she did not like this reparation on false pretences. “I have much to say to you--”
“Not to-day--not to-day,” interrupted the Grand Duke. “I am exhausted, my dear. Go to your apartments and compose yourself.”
Erica went to her wing of The Castle and sat by a window, trying to plan the next move. But her brain was so hot and her thoughts so rambling that she could devise nothing. She rang for her maid. An old woman appeared. “I rang for Ernestine,” said Erica.
“Yes, Your Serene Highness. Ernestine has been taken suddenly ill and sent me in her place. I’m Greta.”
Something in the old woman’s face and manner roused an uneasiness in her. She went to the outer door of her apartment. A stupid-looking soldier was on guard there, marching stiffly to and fro.
“I’m on guard,” he answered, in a mountain dialect of German which she could hardly understand.
“Come now, lady, don’t make trouble. I can’t let you pass.” He put his hand on her arm.
“Don’t touch me!” She looked at him haughtily. “I am the Duchess Erica.”
“Yes; I know you think so, lady; that’s your trouble. Now go back quietly--do!”
She returned to her apartment. “Leave me,” she said to the old woman.
Greta retired to the anteroom. “Out of the apartment!” exclaimed Erica. “I do not wish you about.”
“Pardon, Your Serene Highness, but His Royal Highness has commanded me not to leave.”
Erica closed the door of her boudoir. She paced the floor. “How helpless I am!” she thought. “I cannot move in any direction!”
Early the next morning Grafton went to a lawyer--Fogel, who is conspicuous in the Zweitenbourg Reichstag as a fierce anti-monarchist. Grafton professed a student’s interest in the laws affecting the royal prerogative. Fogel was most courteous and obliging. He explained in detail, and, when he had ended, Grafton saw that legally his affair was hopeless. The Grand Duke was absolute over the members of his own family and court, except that he could not inflict the death penalty, nor could he detain any one in prison for a longer period than six months without showing cause before the supreme tribunal--on application of a relative of the detained person.