The Princess murmured our names formally and coldly.
“I have heard something of you, Count, from General Kolfort.” He spoke as if it had been nothing to my good. “If I mistake not, I saw you at the ball last night.”
“I was there,” I answered curtly.
“I want a word or two with you, sometime, and will wait upon you.” Had I been a servant at whom he was flinging an order, he could not have put more offensive patronage into his tone.
“If you will write your business I will see if I have time to give you an appointment,” I answered with intentional brusqueness. He was not accustomed to be addressed in such a tone, and he started and flushed with anger. I took no notice, but with a bow to the Princess I murmured, “I have the honour to wish you good day, Madame,” and, ignoring the Duke entirely, I went away, leaving him staring angrily after me.
“I hate the brute,” I said to myself as I went into the street; and in truth I seemed to find a special cause of offence in the fact that I had had to leave him alone with the Princess. “I wish to Heaven he’d quarrel with me,” I muttered; and, indeed, the wish was to have a fulfilment that at the moment I had no cause to anticipate or hope.
CHAPTER X
“IN THE NAME OF A WOMAN”
The result of my interview with the Princess will be readily understood. It made me more devoted to her than ever. The sweetness of her manner, the charm of her rare beauty, the loftiness of her aims, the faith and confidence she had shown in me, and the many signs of her reliance upon me had enslaved me. In a word, I was in love with her. She was far above me, and there was no hope that I could ever win her for my wife. There were a thousand obstacles in the way. But there was nothing to stop my loving her.
So far I had never met one to touch my heart and kindle the myriad flames of inspiring passion which throbbed and thrilled in me now with such ecstasy at the mere thought of this rare and wonderful pearl among women.
I gave heed to no thought of consequences—never paused to think what the end of such a passion might be, nor where it might lead me. She had changed every habit of my mind. Usually cautious, calculating, and self-reserved, I heeded nothing now but the delicious knowledge that I loved her and could serve her, and help her to gain the high and noble end she had in view. And serve her I vowed I would with every faculty I possessed, and, if the need were, at the cost of every drop of blood in my body. I flung every other consideration to the winds and dizzied my brain with dreams of the delight it would yield me to feel that I could be the means of helping her.