“I have no right to—to judge anyone,” he stammered. “I——”
“You despise me.” And now it was a statement, not a query.
“No,” he said, slowly, trying to gauge his own tangled emotions, “I don’t. I don’t know why I don’t, but I don’t. I should think anyone else that did such a thing was lower than the beasts. But you—why, you are yourself. And the queen can do no wrong. I’ve known you nearly all your life. If it had been possible for you to harbor a mean or dishonest impulse I’d have been the first person on earth to guess it. Because no one else would have cared as I did. As I do. I don’t understand it at all. And just at first it bowled me over, and a whole rush of disloyal thoughts and doubts came over me. But I know now it’s all right, somehow, for it’s you.”
“You mean,” exclaimed the girl, wonderingly, “that after what I’ve told you, you trust me?”
“Why, of course.”
“And you don’t even ask me to explain?”
“If there was anything I had a right to know—that you wanted me to know—you’d have explained of your own accord.”
She looked at him long, searchingly. Her face was as inscrutable as the Sphinx’s, yet when she spoke it was of a totally different theme.
“What are you going to do?” she inquired.
“Do?” he repeated, perplexed.