"Hasten!--I am afraid!--Oh, it is madness to wait here!"
"Yes,--ah, yes, yes! But come, mon ami." And they disappeared in the direction of the palace.
The Grand Duke looked dispassionately on their retreating figures; inquiringly on the Baroness; reprovingly on the moon, as though he rather suspected it of having treated him with injustice.
"Ma foi," said his Highness, at length, "I have never known such a passion for sunrises. Shortly we shall have them announced as 'Patronized by the Nobility.'"
The Baroness said only, with an ellipsis, "Her own cousin, too!" [Footnote: By courtesy rather than legally; Mademoiselle Berlin was, however, undoubtedly the Elector of Badenburg's sister, though on the wrong side of the blanket; and to her (second) son by Louis Quinze his French Majesty accorded the title of Comte de Châteauroux.]
"Victoria," observed the Grand Duke, "has always had the highest regard for her family; but in this she is going too far--"
"Yes," said the Baroness; "as far as Vienna."
"--and I shall tell her that there are limits, Pardieu," the Grand Duke emphatically repeated, "that there are limits."
"Whereupon, if I am not mistaken, she will reply that there are--baronesses."
"I shall then appeal to her better nature--"
"You will find it," said the Baroness, "strangely hard of hearing."
"--and afterward I shall have de Châteauroux arrested."
"In fact," admitted the Grand Duke, "we do not want a scandal"
"It is no longer," the Baroness considered, "altogether a question of what we want."
"And, morbleu! there will be a horrible scandal--"
"--and trouble with her father, if not international complications--"
"The armies of Noumaria and Badenburg have for years had nothing to do."
"The lawyers will call you blessed. In any event," the Baroness conscientiously added, "your lawyers will. I am afraid that hers--"
"Will scarcely be so courteous?" the Grand Duke queried.
"It is not altogether impossible," the Baroness admitted, "that in preparation of their briefs, they may light upon some other adjective."
"And, in short," his Highness summed it up, "there will be the deuce to pay."
"Oh, no! the piper," said the Baroness,--"after long years of dancing. That is what moralists will be saying, I suspect."