‘There is one very simple solution,’ I said at last. ‘I will arrange your escape.’
‘Impossible!’ she sighed.
I frowned.
‘Pardon me, my dear Countess, but when you did me the honour to consult me, I assumed that you had some confidence in my ability. I offer to take you wherever you wish to go.’
‘You misunderstand me, my dear friend. I do not doubt your power to release me. But my flight would become a public event; Alexander has too little self-restraint to keep silence about it. I should thus damage him as much as by accepting the throne which he offers me. He has sworn, moreover, that if I persist in my refusal, he will abdicate.’
With what sophistries will a woman deceive herself where her heart is concerned! And how worse than useless is it to reason with her.
‘You have told me enough,’ I answered, in a voice which was melancholy in spite of myself. ‘I perceive that this young monarch is not indifferent to you.’
The lovely Servian lowered her glance, and began picking a rose to pieces with her delicate fingers.
‘He is my King,’ she murmured. ‘He is the last of the dynasty of Obrenovitch, which my family have served faithfully for a hundred years. The one thing which alarms me most in the whole situation is that I have been urged to accept the King’s hand by Colonel Masileff.’
‘Colonel Masileff?’