“Ah, well,” thought the old hussar, with an odd smile, “there is the age of moustaches and the age of whiskers, that is all. Ladany has even found a way to become bald: he was born to be a minister!”
It little mattered to him, however, this souvenir of his youth found with new characteristics. If Count Josef Ladany rescued Menko from the police of the Czar, and, by setting him free, delivered him to him, Varhely, all was well. By entering the ministry, Ladany would thus be at least useful for something.
The negotiations with Warsaw, however, detained Yanski Varhely at Vienna longer than he wished. Count Josef evidently went zealously to work to obtain from the Russian Government Menko’s release. He had promised Varhely, the evening he received his old comrade at dinner, that he would put all the machinery at work to obtain the fulfilment of his request. “I only ask you, if I attain the desired result, that you will do something to cool off that hotheaded Menko. A second time he would not escape Siberia.”
Varhely had made no reply; but the very idea that Michel Menko might be free made his head swim. There was, in the Count’s eagerness to obtain Menko’s liberty, something of the excitement of a hunter tracking his prey. He awaited Michel’s departure from the fortress as if he were a rabbit in its burrow.
“If he is set at liberty, I suppose that we shall know where he goes,” he said to the minister.
“It is more than probable that the government of the Czar will trace his journey for him. You shall be informed.”
Count Ladany did not seek to know for what purpose Varhely demanded, with such evident eagerness, this release. It was enough for him that his old brother-in-arms desired it, and that it was possible.
“You see how everything is for the best, Varhely,” he said to him one morning. “Perhaps you blamed me when you learned that I had accepted a post from Austria. Well, you see, if I did not serve the Emperor, I could not serve you!”
During his sojourn at Vienna, Varhely kept himself informed, day by day, as to what was passing in Paris. He did not write to Prince Zilah, wishing, above everything, to keep his errand concealed from him; but Angelo Valla, who had remained in France, wrote or telegraphed whatever happened to the Prince.