“You are gaining golden laurels,” she said. “You are like the prince in Shakespeare who was transformed by becoming king. But I’m forgetting you are King, sire.”
“I ask you to speak nothing but what your heart tells you—and to call me nothing but my name.”
She looked at me for a moment.
“Then I’m glad and proud, Rudolf,” said she. “Why, as I told you, your very face is changed.”
I acknowledged the compliment, but I disliked the topic; so I said:
“My brother is back, I hear. He made an excursion, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he is here,” she said, frowning a little.
“He can’t stay long from Strelsau, it seems,” I observed, smiling. “Well, we are all glad to see him. The nearer he is, the better.”
The princess glanced at me with a gleam of amusement in her eyes.
“Why, cousin? Is it that you can—?”