CHAPTER IV

THE LITTLE DUKE

The next day, as they entered the Hall of the Ancestors, grandma dropped the duke’s arm to seat herself in a great chair. But the chair was in carved wood and very hard. Decidedly, this was a feudal castle, and much less comfortable than a Chicago home.

Ethel thanked the little Adalbert with a big kiss. The child, accompanied by his father, had been the guide of Ethel and grandma. He had climbed up and down steps too high for him; but Ethel gave him her hand; and the child explained and mentioned names, as he showed mosaics and statues in the crypt. “My grandfather, Amalfrid IX, my ancestor Enguerrand, Lady Rhodaïs, Bertha, St. Morgana”;—one would have said he was the familiar genius of the place, a little wandering soul of the dead, doing to the living the honors of the past.

When they issued forth from these gloomy vaults, Adalbert hastened to go off and play with Sœurette behind the pillars of the great hall.

For some days the place was the scene of constant festivity. The noise of laughter was heard; there was talk and the movement of life, and roses garnished the vases. Servants carried back and forth cakes and fruits. At times, beneath the arches, there rolled an uncertain harmony,—it was Ethel trying the old piano.

What a change for Adalbert, who was used to being alone with his aged tutor. Until then his walks along the ramparts, amid the box-trees twisted by the wind, had been his chief amusement. How often he had wished to go down and untie the old boat moored at the foot of the wall, and sail out into the bay!

But the duke, with all his frequent traveling, had the child whom he adored looked after with the greatest care. It was the last of his race,—their last hope. If the child should die, to which of his powerful neighbors would the duchy fall as a prey? So the child grew up in the old castle with the portraits of his forefathers looking down at him; and his imagination awoke to the recital of ancient legends. In his dreams by night he saw gentle visions bending over him. Now, all had grown alive, and the visions were realities. There were big friends to dance him on their knees; there was a kind old fairy speaking softly to him in a foreign tongue. Two young maidens, more beautiful than those of his dreams, took him in their arms; and for playmates he had a delightful little girl who taught him games and called him Monseigneur. Ethel looked at Adalbert playing with Sœurette; the child was bright and gay, and she complimented the duke.

“It is because your visit gives him such pleasure,” said the duke,—“as much as to me, were it possible! I don’t know what he will do when you go away,—poor Adalbert! He will be very sorry.”

Ethel looked thoughtful. The duke leaned over the back of her chair, and, so as to be heard by her alone, spoke slowly:

“It will be his apprenticeship in life. Separation from what one loves most in the world—that is where everything ends; and yet, perhaps—”

Ethel did not answer, but remained with her head resting on her hand. She understood quite well what the duke wished to say. She looked aimlessly before her, thinking of all that she had seen, of all these parade-rooms and _chambres d’honneur_, and the gloomy stairways. The gallery, adorned with portraits and suits of heavy armor, haunted her. The donjons and courtyards, the bastions and the moat and rusty drawbridge,—she saw it all in her mind. In the old time, on festive days, what a grand air it must all have had, with the heralds’ trumpets, with banqueting and tournaments, where fair duchesses crowned those who vanquished! Or, again, at the home-coming from the wars, when the Lady Knight of Malta, Queen of Antioch, saluted with her sword the torn banners! What a magnificent opportunity there would be to bring this all back to sight, if she should make Morgania live again with her millions! The castle could be made the most princely abode in Europe. But she wished to know more of Duke Conrad. She wished to judge of him without being dazzled by his titles. She was not to marry ancestors, but a husband whom she might love!

“Your castle is as big as a mountain,” she said to the duke; “you go up and go down. I am now in full training for my excursion to the Roman ruins, and to that not less venerable ruin, the sorceress. When shall we go, monseigneur?”

“Presently,” said the duke, as he pointed to packages and luggage by the door of the hall. “But if I were you, I would not go to Drina,” he added earnestly.

“Do you fear for the escort which accompanies us?” said Ethel, with a smile.

“No; but if harm should come to you, what grief for me!” replied the duke.

“Nothing will happen to us!” said Ethel. “And then, can you imagine me going back to Chicago without having had a single kodak-shot at brigands from nature?”

“I am unable to accompany you, and I regret it,” said the duke. “I have to make an inspection of the coast, and I ought also to receive a delegation of the people.”

“We shall go alone,” said Ethel. “St. Morgana will protect us.”

Something happened which greatly amused Ethel and grandma; and the duke himself could not help smiling. Adalbert broke off his play with Sœurette, and came running to his father. He looked in turn at the Morgana of the picture and at Helia, who was sitting near it. The great canvas, illuminated by the stained-glass window, harmonized splendidly with the hall. At the distance where Ethel and the duke were placed, there was nothing to hide the view of the painting. They saw all its details, even the crowd which Phil had depicted along the shore; it might have been the same crowd which thronged the jetty the evening of the yacht’s arrival, when the booming of the cannon drew the people to the sea.

But the crowd in Phil’s picture was more animated and gay. Instead of the gloom of discouragement, it seemed transfigured by hope. It acclaimed the heroine; Rhodaïs and Bertha and Thilda, with swords in their hands, appeared amid the clouds. Everything in the magnificent picture was strange and supernatural.

The child had just been struck by the resemblance between the model and the portrait of Morgana; his astonishment was touching, as he looked from one to the other. He asked himself if the ancient legends were not realized at last! if Morgana herself had not risen again from the past, to be painted by Phil.

“My father,” said the child to the duke, “is it really Morgana? Tell me!”

“What a child!” answered the duke, taking him in his arms to kiss him. “He believes that Mlle. Helia is Morgana.” And he looked at Ethel as if to say, “I know full well who Morgana is—it is you!”