The King shook his head sadly.
“It is useless, my friend. She is not too young to love. I know her too well to expect her to change. I will vex her no more.”
And he went on hastily.
Johann stood frowning and looking after him. Then his own face suddenly flushed, and he drew a deep breath. He seemed to be labouring to subdue some disturbing emotion as he stepped forward in the direction from which the King had just come.
As he had anticipated, his path brought him straight to Dorothea, who was still sitting beside the little beach, and striving to check her sobs. She raised her head quickly at his approach, and a look of apprehension came into her eyes.
Her cousin came to a stand in front of her, with the stern air of a judge about to rebuke an offender.
“Well,” he said in a severe voice, “I hope you realise what you have done.”
“Has the King told you?” she asked timidly.
“Yes; he has told me that you have refused him—refused to become a queen, with the grandest opportunities of playing a noble part in history that any woman ever had.”
“But, Johann, I am not fit for such a position. It terrifies me. I do not want to play a grand part. All I want is to be allowed to go on living peacefully, away from all these plots and intrigues and revolutions. I wish the King had never seen me, and then I might still be in the old lodge, without a care in the world, except to milk the cow and get ready my father’s meals.”