In Vienna the Deppinghams were joined by the Duchess of N------, the
Marchioness of B------ and other fashionables.  In a week all of them
would be in the Castle at Thorberg, for the ceremony that now occupied
the attention of social and royal Europe.

“And to think,” said the Duchess, “she might have died happily on that miserable island.  I am sure we did all we could to bring it about by steaming away from the place with the plague chasing after us.  Dear me, how diabolically those wretches lied to the Marquess.  They said that every one in the chateau was dead, Lady Deppingham—­and buried, if I am not mistaken.”

The party was dining with one of the Prince Lichtensteins in the Hotel Bristol after a drive in the Haupt-Allee.

“My dog, I think, was the only one of us who died, Duchess,” said Lady Agnes airily.  “And he was buried.  They were that near to the truth.”

“It would be much better for poor Genevra if she were to be buried instead of married next week,” lamented the Duchess.

“My dear, how ridiculous.  She isn’t dead yet, by any manner of means.  Why bury her?  She’s got plenty of life left in her, as Karl Brabetz will learn before long.”  Thus spoke the far-sighted Marchioness, aunt of the bride-to-be.  “It’s terribly gruesome to speak of burying people before they are actually dead.”

“Other women have married princes and got on very well,” said Prince Lichtenstein.

“Oh, come now, Prince,” put in Lord Deppingham, “you know the sort of chap Brabetz is.  There are princes and princes, by Jove.”

“He’s positively vile!” exclaimed the Duchess, who would not mince words.

“She’s entering upon a hell of a—­I mean a life of hell,” exploded the Duke, banging the table with his fist.  “That fellow Brabetz is the rottenest thing in Europe.  He’s gone from bad to worse so swiftly that public opinion is still months behind him.”

“Nice way to talk of the groom,” said the host genially.  “I quite agree with you, however.  I cannot understand the Grand Duke permitting it to go on—­unless, of course, it’s too late to interfere.”

“Poor dear, she’ll never know what it is to be loved and cherished,” said the Marchioness dolefully.

Lord and Lady Deppingham glanced at each other.  They were thinking of the man who stood on the dock at Aratat when the King’s Own sailed away.

“The Grand Duke is probably saying the very thing to himself that Brabetz’s associates are saying in public,” ventured a young Austrian count.

“What is that, pray?”

“That the Prince won’t live more than six months.  He’s a physical wreck to-day—­and a nervous one, too.  Take my word for it, he will be a creeping, imbecile thing inside of half a year.  Locomotor ataxia and all that.  It’s coming, positively, with a sharp crash.”

“I’ve heard he has tried to kill that woman in Paris half a dozen times,” remarked one of the women, taking it as a matter of course that every one knew who she meant by “that woman.”  As no one even so much as looked askance, it is to be presumed that every one knew.