The latter, indissolubly wedded to Franz’s interest by his marriage with the Chotek, was his chief support in the Dual Monarchy. Hungary had labelled him Nero, the Germans regarded him as a renegade, while Trieste and the Trentino suspected him of harbouring treachery against the Motherland.
That he was wedded to the idea of the restoration of the States of the Church was a foregone conclusion, and the re-establishment of the Austrian Archdukes—who forfeited their Italian thronelets under Victor Emmanuel II.—would be the logical sequence.
"Of course, there is the Triple Alliance," faltered Franz.
"Not at all binding," decided Bauer, "since one of the signatories is under the ban of the Church, and the other" (with a mock bow before a painting of the War Lord) "a heretic."
Franz reverently kissed the Jesuit’s hand. "A relief, a priceless relief of grave conscientious scruples," he said warmly. "Thank you, Father Bauer." Then, giving his voice quite an Olympian intonation: "We have no further commands for you to-night."
Franz Este swore lustily when he discovered a red silk nightgown under his pillow. After a Vienna haberdasher had told him that Alexander of Servia had worn a night garment of this colour, he had banished them from his wardrobe, intending to use the supply on hand for presents.
Franz tugged viciously at the crystal knobs of the rococo chest of drawers, pulling one to the ground and dislocating the handles of others. "Confound it! All red, Alexander-red—red as blood!"
An ill omen? A thorough fanatic, Franz was the most superstitious of men. However, as subsequent events showed, in this case superstition was the mother of horrors unparalleled. Alexander’s fate had been sealed eight months before, when the red-nightgowned King and his Queen were slaughtered in their bedchamber; but somewhere among the Balkan principalities the plot that eventually did away with Franz and his Duchess might have been hatching even then—who knows?
The taciturn, soured, cruel Franz forgot about the Alexander-hued nightgown when he prepared to report the day’s events to his wife, for he loved Sophie. He used a small table at the foot of the big rococo couch for a writing-desk, and as he sat there, facing the silvered canopy with China silk curtains falling from a crown held aloft by cupids, his face recalled the features of a French soldier who had been condemned to death for a series of crimes, and who, to his judges and fellow-men, had boasted of his utter lack of feelings.