'You must take it all, the town and the title, and all they bring,' she insisted. 'In truth, but for you there would possibly be no town at all. Nay, my dear, you must do me this little pleasure; it will become you so well that Countship of Idrac: it is as old a place as Vindobona itself.'
'Do you not understand?' she added, with a flush on her face. 'I want you to feel that it is wholly yours; that if I die, or if you leave me, it remains yours still. Oh, I do not doubt you; not for one moment. But liberty is always good. And Idrac will make you an Austrian noble in your own right. If you persist in refusing it I will assign it to the Crown; you will pain me and mortify me.'
'That is enough! Never wittingly in my life will I hurt you. But if you wish me to be lord of Idrac, invest me with the title, my Empress. I will take it and be proud of it; and as for the revenues--well, we will not quarrel for them. They shall go to make new dykes and new bastions for the town, or pile themselves one on another in waiting for your children.'
She smiled and her face grew warm as she turned aside and took up one of the great swords with jewelled hilts and damascened scabbards, which were ranged along the wall of the Rittersaal with other stands of arms.
She drew the sword, and as he fell on his knee before her smote him lightly on the shoulder with its blade.
'Rise, Graf von Idrac!' she said, stooping and touching his forehead with the bouquet that she wore at her breast. He loosened one of the roses and held it to his lips.
'I swear my fealty now and for ever,' he said with emotion, and his face was paler and his tone was graver than the playfulness of the moment seemed to call for in him.
'Would to Heaven I had had no other name than this one you give me,' he murmured as he rose. 'Oh, my love, my lady, my guardian angel! Forget that ever I lived before, forget all my life when I was unworthy you; let me live only from the day that will make me your vassal and your----'
'That will make you my lord!' she said softly; then she stooped, and for the first time kissed him.
What caused her the only pain that disturbed the tranquillity of these cloudless days was the refusal of her cousin Egon to be present at her marriage. He sent her, with some great jewels that had come from Persia, a few words of sad and wistful affection.