"The wishes of the King?" she cried, with sudden vehemence. "Surely, surely, my dear, dear father, you cannot mean what you suggest! Think! oh, think just for one moment! That poor young man, who was our guest, whom we all liked—he broke bread with us in our own house, our beautiful château de la Tour d'Aumont, which has never yet been defiled by treachery. And you talk of leaving him there in that far-off land which has proved so inhospitable to him? Of leaving him there either to perish miserably of want and starvation or to fall into the hands of that Hanoverian butcher whose name has become a by-word for unparalleled atrocities?"
She checked herself, and then resumed more calmly:
"Nay, my dear father, I pray you let us cease this argument; for once in the history of our happy life together you and I look at honour from opposite points of view."
"Yes, my dear, I see that, too," he rejoined, speaking now with some hesitation. "I wish I could persuade you to abandon the idea."
"To abandon the unfortunate young Prince, you mean, to break every promise we ever made to him—to become the by-word in our turn for treachery and cowardice in every country in Europe—and why?" she added, with helpless impatience, trying to understand, dreading almost to question. "Why? Why?"
Then, as her father remained silent, with eyes persistently fixed on some vague object in the remote distance, she said, as if acting on a sudden decisive thought:
"Father, dear, is it solely a question of cost?"
"Partly," he replied, with marked hesitation.
"Partly? Well, then, dear, we will remove one cause of your unexplainable opposition. You may assure His Majesty in my name that the voyage of Le Monarque shall cost the Treasury nothing."
Then as her father made no comment, she continued more eagerly: