[pg 339]
"Why should I trouble because the Princess Clementina has a crumpled rose-leaf in her bed? I will not go," said Mlle. de Caprara.
"Yet her Highness may justly ask why the King lingers in Spain." Wogan saw a look, a smile of triumph, brighten for an instant on the angry face.
"It is no doubt a humiliation to the Princess Clementina," said Maria Vittoria, with a great deal of satisfaction. "But she must learn to bear humiliation like other women."
"But she will reject the marriage," urged Wogan.
"The fool!" cried Maria Vittoria, and she laughed almost gaily. "I will not budge an inch to persuade her to it. Let her fancy what she will and weep over it! I hate her; therefore she is out of my thought."
Wogan was not blind to the inspiriting effect of his argument upon Maria Vittoria. He had, however, foreseen it, and he continued imperturbably,—
"No doubt you think me something of a fool, too, to advance so unlikely a plea. But if her Highness rejects the marriage, who suffers? Her Highness's name is already widely praised for her endurance, her constancy. If, after all, at the last moment she scornfully rejects that for which she has so stoutly ventured, whose name, whose cause, will suffer most? It will be one more misfortune, one more disaster, to add to the crushing weight under which the King labours. There will be ignominy; who will be dwarfed by it? There will be laughter; whom will it souse? There will be [pg 340] scandal; who will be splashed by it? The Princess or the King?"
Maria Vittoria stood with her brows drawn together in a frown. "I will not go," she said after a pause. "Never was there so presumptuous a request. No, I will not."
Wogan made his bow and retired. But he was at the Caprara Palace again in the morning, and again he was admitted. He noticed without regret that Maria Vittoria bore the traces of a restless night.