"You have as much influence with her as I, Father. If I do my part, so must you."
"Your Majesty may count on my endeavour! It is a happy moment when the need of Austria must outbalance all personal whims."
"The roads are open? You can arrange for a sufficient and well-equipped retinue, for a small company of our goodliest dames and demoiselles?"
"The project is good, Father! Put it in hand at once. The more haste the better."
On further reflection Father Lamormain judged it the wiser plan to prepare the mind of the Archduchess for the order of the Emperor. He knew perhaps better than any one, except Stephanie, how rebellious a Habsburger there was in her. It is even possible that the Archduchess considered her own doings as fulfilling all the _reasonable_ demand of the parental laws. She would, however, have placed her own interpretation on the meaning of "_reasonable_."
He lost no time in seeking her out in her own apartments, and entreating a few moments' conversation.
He began by asking her whether by any chance a young woman, Elspeth Reinheit by name, had travelled with her from Prague, on her way home from Halberstadt.
The Archduchess, evidently astonished at the question, said--
"There is a certain Lutheran pastor, your Highness, who has journeyed to Vienna, one Melchior Rad, who seeks this Elspeth Reinheit."
"He is convinced that this girl was brought by a certain mysterious Countess Ottilie von Thüringen, _of whom I have more than once heard_, to Prague, that she set out for Znaim, and from Znaim for Vienna."
"Indeed! I know of no Countess of the name!"
"Nor do I," said the Jesuit. "Though I have searched the records of heraldry," he added quietly.
The Archduchess felt that the Jesuit was playing the cat to her mouse.
He proceeded: "But the singular thing is that when asked to describe the Countess Ottilie he described your Highness passably well."
"Whom he may have seen at Halberstadt!" said the Archduchess, determined that the cat should not gobble her.
"Only he has not been there!" said Father Lamormain.
"More prodigious still, he recognised your voice, though he did not see your Highness by reason of the darkness!"
"Recognised my voice!" said the Archduchess, now roused to a fine appearance of indignation. "Where was this prowling Lutheran that he could hear my voice and neither see me nor be seen?"