Prince Rivani, the descendant of a noble race, was young, handsome, a favorite at court, a gallant officer, a popular young man all round, and yet he was neither vain nor a fool—which is singular.
To say that he had fallen in love with Margaret the first time he saw her, when he nearly rode her down, would be to say too much; but when she came to live at the villa, and he saw her day by day, her beauty, and grace, and that sweetness which is given to so few women, but which she possessed so abundantly, grew upon him, until he awoke one day to find that his heart had left him, and that he loved the young English girl of whose past he knew—nothing!
King Cophetua and the beggar girl is a very pretty story, and no doubt the king was very happy with his bride for a time, but the story does not go on to tell us that they were happy ever afterward, and as a matter of fact we may conclude that the monarch who marries a beggar maid commits a remarkably rash act. Such matches are not always happy ones.
Prince Rivani knew that he was expected to marry a lady of his own rank, or at any rate, of his own class. He knew that there were at least half a dozen beautiful women at the court, from whom he might choose a wife, and from whom he would be expected to choose one. "To marry beneath him," would, if it did not quite break her heart, make his mother, the signora, very unhappy, and would probably ruin his promising career.
He was a gentleman, and he was not a fool, so he went off to court determined to cure himself of the passion which had assailed him, and to forget the lovely English girl with the sad look in her dark eyes, and the sweet smile which made him long to keep it on her face forever.
It was a task beyond his strength, this forgetting her, but he had hoped that he was out of danger, when he returned and lo!—discovered that her love had taken too firm a hold upon his heart to be rooted out. The girl he had left unknown and of little account in the world, had suddenly, in a night, become famous. The glamour of her beauty, which had so affected even strangers, exercised a fascination for him, and he had spoken and avowed his love.
And she had refused him—or something like it. It was this refusal he was pondering over as he paced up and down, smoking cigar after cigar, long after the rest of the villa was hushed in quietude, if not repose.
Should he accept her refusal? No, he would not, he could not! She had become part and parcel of his very life; all his thoughts centered in her. At night he lay awake and called up her face; at day he thought of and longed for her. And to lose her at a word! She had said "No," because he had startled her. He had been too sudden and too abrupt!—the very first night of his return to the villa. He should have waited and prepared her by his attentions for the avowal he had sprung upon her last night.
No, he would not relinquish the hope which made life sweet to him so easily; he would win her even against herself if need were.
So, with one more glance at the window, the prince went to his rooms, to lie awake and watch the dawn creeping over the fair city which his race had helped to make illustrious.