CHAPTER VII
THE HONORS OF THE DAY
It is those in the thick of the battle who can afterwards tell least about it; and to the Princess those five minutes—moments the most tremendous, the most vital of her life—were afterwards in memory like a dream.
She had seen that a man was ghastly pale; she had caught a gleam of fear in his eye; she had felt a tigerish quiver run through his frame as the crowd pressed him against her. Instinct—and love—had told her the rest, and taught her how to act.
Vaguely she recalled later, that she had thrown herself forward and struck up the knife. An impression of that knife as the light gleamed on it, alone was clear. Sickening, she had thought of the dull sound it would make in falling, of the blood that would spout from a rent in the white coat, among the jeweled orders. She had thought, as one thinks in dying, of existence in a world empty of Leopold, and she had known that unless he could be saved, her one wish was to go out of the world with him.
More than this she had not thought or known. What she did was done scarcely by her own volition, and she seemed to wake with a start at last, to hear herself sobbing, and to feel the throb, throb, of a hot pain in her arm.
A hundred hands—not quick enough to save, yet quick enough to follow the lead given by her—had fought to seize the man in gray, and stop a second blow. They had borne him away; while as for Virginia, her work done, she forgot everything and every one but Leopold.
Reviving, she had heard him speak to the crowd, and told herself dreamily that, were she dying, his voice could bring her back if he called. She even listened to each word that rang out like a cathedral bell, above the babel. Still he held her, and when the cheers came, she scarcely understood that they were for her as well as for Leopold the Emperor. Afterwards, the necessity for public action over, he bent his head close enough to whisper, “Thank you”; and then for Virginia every syllable was clear.
“You are the bravest woman alive,” he said. “I had to keep them from killing that ruffian, but now I can speak to you alone. I thank you for what you did, with my whole heart, and I pray Heaven you’re not seriously hurt.”