to your children. They will become
pensioners upon the bounty of those who hate their mother."

"Impossible!" whispered the Archduke tensely. "It must not be. I will
find a way----"

"Listen, Franz, my brother. A magnificent horizon spreads before you.
Look at it. Part of the Duchy of Posen, the ancient Kingdom of Poland
with Lithuania and the Ukraine, the Poland of the Jagellons, stretching
from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Yours. And after you, Maximilian's.
For Ernest, Bohemia, Hungary, the Southern Slav lands of Austria,
Serbia, the Slav coast of the Eastern Adriatic and Saloniki;--two
Empires in one. And the states of those who have despised Sophie
Chotek----" he paused expressively and snapped his jaws, "the Austrian
Erblaender will come into the Confederated German Empire." He paused
again and then went on more quietly, "Between us two a close and
perpetual military and economic alliance, to be the arbiters of Europe
under the Divine will, dominating the West and commanding the road to
the East." He paused and took a fresh cigarette from the box on the
table.

"It is what I have dreamed," murmured the deep voice of the Archduke.
"And yet it is no dream, but reality. Fate plays into my hands. At no
time have we been in a better position."

It was the turn of the Archduke to walk the floor of the arbor with long
strides, his hands behind him, his gaze bent before him.

"Yes, civilization, progress--all material things. But the Church--you
forget, _Majestaet_, that your people and mine are of different faiths.
Some assurance I must have that there will be no question----"

"Willingly," said the other, rising. "Do not my people serve God as they
choose? For you, if you like, the Holy Roman Empire reconstituted with
you as its titular head, the sovereignty of central Europe intact--all
the half formulated experiments of the West, at the point of the sword.
This is your mission--and mine!"

The two men faced each other, eye to eye, but the smaller dominated.

"A pact, my brother," said the man in the hunting-suit, extending his
hand.

The Archduke hesitated but a moment longer, and then thrust forward. The
hands clasped, while beside the two, the tall man stood like a Viking,
his great head bent forward, his forked beard wagging over the table.

"A pact," repeated the Archduke, "which only Death may disrupt."

They stood thus in a long moment of tension. It was he they called
_Majestaet_ who first relaxed