"Love, if it should come to you with your marriage, will, I daresay, be of inestimable value to you. What you feel now may be more the feelings of sexual attraction than the fuller love of comradeship and mental sympathy; love does enter Royal marriages, in spite of the cynics."
"I will try to think as you suggest," I said. "But there are other things of which I wish to talk to you. To begin with, will you come with me to Rudarlia, will you continue to be my friend and adviser as you have been up to now? I know that once I am on the throne I shall always have to have Rudarlians about me; but my own private friends they cannot object to. As my private secretary, you will always be near me to help and advise. Will you come?"
"It may cause jealousy."
"I can't help it if it does. After Ivan and his many mistresses, they will have to allow me one man friend; and I believe they will be pleased to."
"Then I will come."
"Now one thing more, will you stay here and look after my mother until she can come to Rudarlia?"
"Of course I will, if she wishes it."
We sat up until three in the morning discussing ways and means; but made no attempt to listen to more than a bare outline of what Mr. Smith had arranged. It would all have to come out gradually, in time I should no doubt learn how he had worked so successfully; he stuck to the principal things and nothing could side-track him. I slept for two hours, and then went to see Bauen.
It was a great day for him; he was to come to Karena with us. He had been looking forward for twenty years to seeing me upon my throne.
I believe that his soul was wrapped up in one idea, that of doing his duty to my family. I doubt if any man, noble or commoner, had ever served a Royal family with such self-sacrifice and devotion.