"We have been together to-day," she said. "That will be there always. Yes, the sun and the world were made for us this day—and we have been worthy."
He pressed her hand. "You were sent to teach me what joy is—the worth of the world to men who live in it. You're the angel of joy, Sophy. Before you came, I had missed that lesson."
"I'm very glad"—thus she ends her own record of this day of glory—"that I've brought joy to Monseigneur. He faces his fight joyful of heart." And then, with one of her absurd, deplorable, irresistible lapses into the merest ordinary feminine, she adds: "That red badge is just the touch my sheepskin cap wanted!"
Oh, Sophy, Sophy, what of that for a final reflection on the eve of Monseigneur's fight?
XIII
A DELICATE DUTY
There was a stir in Slavna; excitement was gradually growing, not unmixed with uneasiness; gossip was busy at the Hôtel de Paris and at the Golden Lion. Men clustered in groups and talked, while their wives said that they would be better at home, minding their business and letting politics alone. Knowledge was far to seek; rumors were plentiful. Dr. Natcheff might be as reassuring as he pleased—but he had spent the night at the Palace! All was quiet in the city, but news came of the force that was being raised in Volseni, and the size of the force lost nothing as the report passed from mouth to mouth. Little as Slavna loved the Prince, it was not eager to fight him. A certain reaction in his favor set in. If they did not love him, they held him in sincere respect; if he meant to fight, then they were not sure that they did!
Baroness Dobrava's name, too, was much on men's lips; stories about Sophy were bandied to and fro; people began to remember that they had from the beginning thought her very remarkable—a force to be reckoned with. The superstitious ideas about her made their first definite appearance now. She had bewitched the Prince, they said, and the men of the hills, too; the whole mountain country would rise at her bidding and sweep down on Slavna in rude warfare and mad bravery. The Sheepskins would come, following the Red Star!
The citizens of Slavna did not relish the prospect; at the best it would be very bad for trade; at the worst it would mean blood and death let loose in the streets. A stern ruler was better than civil war. The troops of the garrison were no longer such favorites as they had been; even Captain Hercules subdued his demeanor (which, indeed, had never quite recovered from the chastisement of the Prince's sword) to a self-effacing discretion. He, too, in his heart, and in his heavy, primitive brain, had an uneasy feeling about the witch with the Red Star; had she not been the beginning of trouble? But for her, Sterkoff's long knife would have set an end to the whole chapter long ago!