the performance of the choir boys that day would leave much to be desired, for two of the best singers had not yet recovered.
“But the substitute, the admirable substitute?” Charles impatiently interrupted.
“That is just what troubles us,” Wolf replied uneasily. “The magnificent new voice wishes to desert the maestro to-night.”
“Desert?” cried the Emperor angrily. “A choir boy in the service of her Majesty the Queen of Hungary! So there is still something new under the sun.”
“Certainly,” replied Wolf with a low bow, still striving, in obedience to the regent’s strict command, not to reveal the sex of the new member of the choir. “And this case is especially unusual. This voice is not in her Majesty’s service. It belongs to a volunteer, as it were, a native of this city, whose wonderful instrument and rare ability we discovered. But, begging your Majesty’s pardon, the soul of such an artist is a strange thing, inflammable and enthusiastic, but just as easily wounded and disheartened.”
“The soul of a boy!” cried Charles contemptuously. “Appenzelder does not look like a man who would permit such whims.”
“Not in his choir, certainly,” said the young nobleman. “But this voice—allow me to repeat it—is not at his disposal. It was no easy matter to obtain it at all, and, keenly as the maestro disapproves of the caprices of this beautiful power, he can not force it—the power, I mean—to the obedience which his boys——”
Here the Emperor laughed shrilly. “The power, the voice! The songstress, you should say. This whimsical volunteer with the voice of an angel, who is so tenderly treated by rough Appenzelder, is a woman, not a refractory choir boy. How you are blushing! You have proved a very inapt pupil in the art of dissimulation and disguise in my royal sister’s service. Really and truly, I am right!”
Here another bow from Wolf confirmed the Emperor’s conjecture; but the latter, highly pleased with his own penetration, laughed softly, exclaiming to the baron: “Where were our ears? This masquerade is surely the work of the Queen, who so dearly loves the chase. And she forbade you too, Malfalconnet, to give me your confidence?” Again a silent bow assented.
The Emperor bent his eyes on the ground a short time, and then said, half in soliloquy: “It was not possible otherwise. Whence could a boy learn the ardent, yearning longing of which that ‘Quia amore langueo’ was so full? And the second, less powerful voice, which accompanied her, was that a girl’s too? No? Yet that also, I remember, had a suggestion of feminine tenderness. But only the marvellously beautiful melody of one haunted me. I can hear it still. The irresistible magic of this ‘Amore langueo’ mingled even in my conversation with Granvelle.”
Then he passed his hand across his lofty brow, and in a different tone asked Wolf, “So it is a girl, and a native of this city?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” was the reply.
“And, in spite of the praise of the gracious mother of God, a Protestant, like the other fools in this country?”
“No, my lord,” replied the nobleman firmly; “a pious Catholic Christian.”
“Of what rank?”
“She belongs, through both parents, to a family of knightly lineage, entitled to bear a coat-of-arms and appear in the lists at tournaments. Her father has drawn his sword more than once in battle against the infidels—at the capture of Tunis, under your own eyes, your Majesty, and in doing so he unfortunately ruined the prosperity of his good, ancient house.”
“What is his name?”
“Wolfgang Blomberg.”
“A big, broad-shouldered German fighter, with a huge mustache and pointed beard. Shot in the leg and wounded in the shoulder. Pious, reckless, with the courage of a lion. Afterward honoured with the title of captain.”
Full of honest amazement at such strength of memory, Wolf endeavoured to express his admiration; but the imperial general interrupted him with another question, “And the daughter? Does her appearance harmonize with her voice?”
“I think so,” replied Wolf in an embarrassed tone.
“Wonderfully beautiful and very aristocratic,” said the baron, completing the sentence, and raising the tips of his slender fingers to his lips.
But this gesture seemed to displease his master, for he turned from him, and, looking the young Ratisbon knight keenly in the face, asked suspiciously, “She is full of caprices—I am probably right there also—and consequently refuses to sing?”
“Pardon me, your Majesty,” replied Wolf eagerly. “If I understand her feelings, she had hoped to earn your Majesty’s approval, and when she received no other summons, nay, when your Majesty for the second time countermanded your wish to hear the boy choir, she feared that her art had found no favour in your Majesty’s trained ears, and, wounded and disheartened—”
“Nonsense!” the Emperor broke in wrathfully. “The contrary is true. The Queen of Hungary was commissioned to assure the supposed boy of my approval. Tell her this, Sir Wolf Hartschwert, and do so at once. Tell her—”
“She rode to the forest with some friends,” Wolf timidly ventured to interpose to save himself other orders impossible to execute. “If she has not returned home, it might be difficult—”
“Whether difficult or easy, you will find her,” Charles interrupted. “Then, with a greeting from her warmest admirer, Charles, the music lover, announce that he does not command, but entreats her to let him hear again this evening the voice whose melody so powerfully moved his heart.—You, Baron, will accompany the gentleman, and not return without the young lady!—What is her name?”
“Barbara Blomberg.”
“Barbara,” repeated the sovereign, as if the name evoked an old memory; and, as though he saw before him the form of the woman he was describing, he added in a low tone: “She is blue-eyed, fairskinned and rosy, slender yet well-rounded. A haughty, almost repellent bearing. Thick, waving locks of golden hair.”
“That is witchcraft!” the baron exclaimed. “Your Majesty is painting her portrait in words exactly, feature by feature. Her hair is like that of Titian’s daughter.”
“Apparently you have not failed to scrutinize her closely,” remarked the Emperor sharply. “Has she already associated with the gentlemen of the court?”
Both promptly answered in the negative, but the Emperor continued impatiently: “Then hasten! As soon as she is here, inform me.—The meal, Malfalconnet, must be short-four courses, or five at the utmost, and no dessert. The boy choir is not to be stationed in the chapel, but in the dining hall, opposite to me.—We leave the arrangement to you, Sir Wolf. Of course, a chair must be placed for the lady.—Have the larger table set in another room, baron, and, for ought I care, serve with all twenty courses and a dessert. Old Marquise de Leria will remain here. She will occupy Queen Mary’s seat at my side. On account of the singer, I mean. Besides, it will please the marquise’s vanity.”
His eyes sparkled with youthful fire as he gave these orders. When the ambassadors were already on the threshold, he called after them:
“Wherever she may be, however late it may become, you will bring her. And,” he added eagerly, as the others with reverential bows were retiring, “and don’t forget, I do not command—I entreat her.”
When he was alone, Charles drew a long breath, and, resting his head on his hand, his thoughts returned to the past. Half-vanished pictures unconsciously blended with the present, which had so unexpectedly assumed a bright colouring.
“Barbara,” he murmured, almost inaudibly. Then he continued in soliloquy: “The beautiful Jungfrau Groen in Brussels was also called Barbara, and she was the first. Another of this name, and perhaps the last. How can this ardent yearning take root in my seared soul and grow so vigorously?”
Meanwhile he fancied that the “Quia amore