Her eyes were cast down so that he saw little but the soft black fringes of the lids; her rich voice was modulated to all but a whisper. And as the man gazed at her, drinking in her words and watching the heave and fall of her bosom, an unusual gentleness crept over him and he began to see the wonder of her.
"Gracious and beautiful princess!" he said. "To think that as I climbed I knew nothing of the spirit that spoke secretly to mine and urged me forward and upward." There was something of self-reproach in his tone as for something beautiful in a glimpse of the valley that a climber misses and learns of in after days.
"I prayed for your success. I do not know what I would have had you do, until the day of Ratisbon, when all the dogs in Germany bayed at you and the Emperor sent an embassy--it was that in fact--to beg you to lay down the power, the stupendous power, you wielded. Then, oh the direful days they were! I hoped, I feared. I dreaded and longed to hear that, like Cæsar of old, you were crossing the Rubicon and were marching on the capital."
"It is true. My heart had awakened. The woman mourned and would not be comforted. She would have had you king! King, Albrecht! And you put everything aside to resume a private station. And some said that therein you did the greatest act of your life to make the way easy for the Emperor and bring peace into the land."
"Not I!" She raised her head proudly to its full eminence, that queenly brow with its twin lakes of unfathomable light. "Not I! What to me was the peace of Germany, or of the Emperor? I would have had you march on to victory or death. Fortune must be taken at the flood. She seldom comes twice for the same barque."
"You have the spirit of your eagles, Stephanie! Trust me! I weighed the chances and put off the hour because the hour was destined to return again. It was tempting fortune; but it was better to resign my baton gracefully at the Emperor's command than to lose all in one desperate, unconsidered rebellion."
"Rebellion is for subjects! But remember, Albrecht von Waldstein, that if you would mate with eagles you must prove yourself their peer. Fly high and boldly!"
Wallenstein experienced another thrill. This time a fresh thought leapt into being. "Mate with eagles? What could she mean?" An unwonted light broke over the cold, lined face.