The August sun streamed down upon the girl and bathed her in its glory. Her hair was a network of spun gold, under its radiance; her dark eyes jewels; her skin roses and snow; her simple white muslin gown a dazzling robe fit for a fairy, rather than an earthly princess.
Yes, she would make an empress, or she would make a goddess. So a man must have thought, even if he had not dared to love her. And so thought her mother.
"The dear Queen has never really favoured poor Henri," murmured the Grand Duchess, a light of introspection in her eyes. Already the French Prince, with pretensions to the incomparable hand of Sylvia, was "poor Henri." "I mean, she has never favoured him as a match for you, though she intimated to me yesterday that she saw no insurmountable objections—if you cared for each other—"
"But we don't. At least I don't. Which is all that signifies." 7
"Pray do not be so flippant. As for Maximilian of Rhaetia, it is perhaps natural that he has never been thought of in connection with you, my dear. He is, no doubt, the most sought after parti in—well, yes, I may say in the world. Not a girl with Royal blood in her veins but would go on her knees to him—"
"I would not," cried Sylvia. "I might worship him, but he should go on his knees to me."
"I doubt if those knees will ever bend to man or woman," said the Grand Duchess. "That, however, is a mere matter of speech. I am serious now, and I wish you to be. Though you are a very beautiful girl, my child—there is no disguising that fact from you, as it has been dinned into your ears since you were old enough to understand—and there is no better blood in Europe than runs in your veins; still, our circumstances are—er—unfortunately such that—that we are, for the present, slightly handicapped."
"We're beggars," said Sylvia. "But Cophetua married a beggar maid;" and she smiled.
"Pray don't liken yourself to any such persons, my dear," objected 8 the Grand Duchess, who, on principle, had so often objected to Sylvia's unconventionalities that the attitude of objection had become chronic. "Your father is dead. The Grand Duchy of Eltzburg-Neuwald has been absorbed by Prussia—for a price, it is true; but it is your brother who has had most of the benefit of that price. And though my dear husband was second cousin to the Emperor of Germany, who loved him during his life as an elder brother, and though you are strictly within the pale from which Maximilian is entitled to select a wife, one must admit that there are other girls who, from a worldly point of view, might be considered more suitable."
"I wasn't thinking of the worldly point of view," said the incorrigible one, with unusual softness. She could be gentle and tender enough in certain moods; but she was used to taking the lead with her mother.