“Nobody can see the count. He’s not here,” she blurted out.
“What, can’t the king see him? Not even the king?”
“King!” she cried, peering at him. “Are you the king?”
Rosa burst out laughing.
“Mother, you must have seen the king a hundred times,” she laughed.
“The king, or his ghost—what does it matter?” said Rudolf lightly.
The old woman drew back with an appearance of sudden alarm.
“His ghost? Is he?”
“His ghost!” rang out in the girl’s merry laugh. “Why, here’s the king himself, mother. You don’t look much like a ghost, sir.”
Mother Holf’s face was livid now, and her eyes staring fixedly. Perhaps it shot into her brain that something had happened to the king, and that this man had come because of it—this man who was indeed the image, and might have been the spirit, of the king. She leant against the door post, her broad bosom heaving under her scanty stuff gown. Yet still—was it not the king?