“I heard your words, sir,” she cried.
“But you didn’t understand them. I spoke as I did to rouse your anger and make you think of other things beside your trouble, and having gained that end, we’ll go back to where we began to speak of yourself.”
“How could you? How dared you?” she wailed, sinking back in her seat again.
“I would do anything and dare anything to make you think of yourself—even let you deem me as mean a hound as my words implied. You must face this thing resolutely. I have one thought that may give us hope.”
“I cannot think or speak of anything now. I—I am sorry for my words just now.”
“They don’t matter any. If you had thought or said anything less, you wouldn’t have been yourself, and I should have been disappointed in you. Now, there’s one thing that may help us. Let me be able to tell Colonel Petrosch when he comes that you renounce all claims to the succession and consent to leave Belgrade before nightfall.”
“Would you have me run away in the hour of danger from a crowd of dastardly assassins?”
“I would have you recognise facts as they are—that the army have the upper hand, for the time at any rate, and that they are resolved no member of your family shall sit on the throne of this country. I would have you save your life, Princess, by the only means that I believe it can be saved.”
“No,” she cried, vehemently. “No one shall ever say I ran away. That I——”
“Wait,” I interposed. “Don’t take an oath about it. An oath is an awkward thing to break; but a resolve one can argue against.”