I sighed and then asked hesitatingly: "It was made a sort of condition you know, and although he was willing to leave everything else to you, I couldn’t get any relief."
"I scarcely like to---- It’s so difficult that---- But I’m afraid you’ll have to--to give in. You know how hard I tried to save you from that--well, from von Felsen; but--I don’t like putting it on the ground that it would help me; but it would really mean that. Would that marriage----?" I paused as if in great embarrassment.
"Tell me. This is cruel," she said quickly.
She did not let me finish. She laid her hand on my arm and looked up all smiles and blushes into my eyes. "It would serve him right if I refused, sir. To frighten me like this!"
She crept into my arms and laid her head on my shoulder with a little sigh.
There was no need for any other answer; and we were nearly caught in this silent enjoyment of our victory by Chalice, who came rustling in to tell us of hers.
"It’s been an absolute triumph," she announced boisterously. "The Kaiser was so delighted with my voice that he sent for me to say that he should pardon the Baron on my account. He is the loveliest man in the world."
And to this hour she believes that it was that and that only which had secured the Imperial clemency.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London
The _Daily Chronicle_ says:--"It is something to manage a complicated plot, just as it is something to drive a tandem, or a coach and four. Mr. Marchmont drives his team handsomely, and lovers of sensations and thrills will thank him duly."
The _Court Circular_ says:--"There is always something supremely audacious about Mr. Marchmont’s books. This, however, I will say, that for a long evening’s solid enjoyment ’When I was Czar’ would be hard to beat."
The _Nottingham Guardian_ says:--"The best story of political intrigue which has been written since ’The Prisoner of Zenda,’ with which it compares for the irresistible buoyancy by which it is told and the skill in which expectation is maintained on tiptoe till the last move."
The _Freeman’s Journal_ says:--"A very brilliant work, every page in it displays the dramatic talent of the author and his capacity for writing smart dialogue."