"Oh, everything is fair in love and war——" She stopped suddenly and looked up at Margaret, and her face flushed eagerly. "Oh! Do you know a thought has struck me. Only think, if Ferdinand should——" She stopped, and clasped Margaret round her waist. "Why, I believe he does already. Oh, dear! It seems almost too good to be true. But fancy if you should, some day, become my real sister!"
Margaret's face crimsoned, then gradually grew pale and strained.
"Princess," she said slowly, "never jest on such a subject again—for my sake and your own."
Gently as the words were spoken, they frightened the young girl.
"Oh, what have I said?" she murmured. "Was it very wicked?" and her lips began to tremble.
Margaret forced a smile, and caressed the rumpled hair tenderly.
"A philosopher who was also a wit once declared that a thing was worse than wicked, it was absurd," she said; "and that is also my answer, and now go to bed, dear, or you will appear at the breakfast table and frighten all your friends, for they will think they see the ghost of the Princess Florence."
The girl thought that her incautious speech had struck some discord in her dear friend's heart, and, kissing her penitently, stole from the room.
"Yes," said Margaret to herself, "I must leave them—I must go into hiding again. Oh, Blair, Blair, you have not only ruined my past, but blighted all my future! It is not only that no love can ever visit my heart again, but you have made even peace impossible!"
Meanwhile the prince strode up and down the terrace, smoking his cigar and glancing now and again up at the windows of the room which contained the woman he loved.