"How does it happen that you speak English so well?" she asked.
"My father required it. It is the result of many weary hours, I assure you. However," added the Prince, "I ought not to complain, since it has secured for me the present hour."
It was the first time Kasia had ever been made the mark for a royal compliment, and she flushed a little in spite of herself.
"It is nice of you to say so!" she murmured. "So you have had your bad times, too?"
"Bad times, Miss Vard! Why, the life that I have led has been a dog's life. There were so many things that I must know—that we all must know—so many things we must not do. I have often gazed from the windows of the palace and envied the boys in the gutter!"
"Not really!"
"Oh, not really, of course. I would not change. What I envied them was their liberty, their freedom to come and go as it pleased them."
"But since you are of age?"
"Even yet, each moment must be accounted for. I am now a lieutenant in the navy, and am supposed to employ each hour profitably. My father is a very great man; there are few things that he does not know; and he expects his sons to know as much. Even of pictures, which bore me; even of music, which distresses me. Everything is arranged. At such a time, I am to be with my ship; again, I am to attend the opera; again, I am to be present at the opening of a museum; again, I must listen to a long address which I do not understand. I may not even choose my own wife. All that is arranged."
"But no doubt," Kasia suggested, amused at his forlorn aspect, "your father will choose more wisely than you would."