“I’ve just taken off my winter flannels,” he observed. “I feel very smooth and nice underneath.”
Hilda giggled, but Hedwig reached over and stroked his arm. “Of course you do,” she said gently.
“Nikky,” continued Prince Ferdinand William Otto, stirring his tea, “does not wear any flannels. Miss Braithwaite thinks he is very careless.”
King Karl’s eyes gleamed with amusement. He saw the infuriated face of the Archduchess, and bent toward the Crown Prince with earnestness.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “since you have mentioned the subject, I do not wear any either. Your ‘Nikky’ and I seem most surprisingly to have the same tastes--about various things.”
Annunciata was in the last stages of irritation. There was no mistaking the sneer in Karl’s voice. His smile was forced. She guessed that he had heard of Nikky Larisch before, that, indeed, he knew probably more than she did. Just what, she wondered, was there to know? A great deal, if one could judge by Hedwig’s face.
“I hope you are working hard at your lesson, Otto,” she said, in the severe tone which Otto had learned that most people use when they refer to lessons.
“I’m afraid I’m not doing very well, Tante. But I’ve learned the ‘Gettysburg Address.’ Shall I say it?”
“Heavens, no!” she protested. She had not the faintest idea what the “Gettysburg Address” was. She suspected Mr. Gladstone.
The Countess had relapsed into silence. A little back from the family circle, she had watched the whole scene stonily, and knowing Karl as only a woman who loves sincerely and long can know a man, she knew the inner workings of his mind. She saw anger in the very turn of his head and set of his jaw. But she saw more, jealousy, and was herself half mad with it.
She knew him well. She had herself, for years, held him by holding herself dear, by the very difficulty of attaining her. And now this indifferent, white-faced girl, who might be his, indeed, for the taking, but who would offer or promise no love, was rousing him to the instinct of possession by her very indifference. He had told her the truth, that night in the mountain inn. It was Hedwig he wanted, Hedwig herself, her heart, all of her. And, if she knew Karl, he would move heaven and earth to get the thing he wanted.