“He is a dissipated roué,” she said in a low tone, with curling lip.
Mr. Sabin, who had been walking restlessly up and down the room, came and stood over her, leaning upon his wonderful stick.
“Helène,” he said gravely, “for your own sake, and for your country’s sake, I charge you to consider well what you are doing. What does it matter to you if Henri is even as bad as you say, which, mark you, I deny. He is the King of France! Personally, you can be strangers if you please, but marry him you must. You need not be his wife, but you must be his queen! Almost you make me ask myself whether I am talking to Helène of Bourbon, a Princess Royal of France, or to a love-sick English country girl, pining for a sweetheart, whose highest ambition it is to bear children, and whose destiny is to become a drudge. May God forbid it! May God forbid, that after all these years of darkness you should play me false now when the dawn is already lightening the sky. Sink your sex! Forget it! Remember that you are more than a woman—you are royal, and your country has the first claim upon your heart. The dignity which exalts demands also sacrifices! Think of your great ancestors, who died with this prayer upon their lips—that one day their children’s children should win again the throne which they had lost. Their eyes may be upon you at this moment. Give me a single reason for this change in you—one single valid reason, and I will say no more.”
She was silent; the colour was coming and going in her cheeks. She was deeply moved; the honest passion in his tone had thrilled her.
“I would not dare to suggest, even in a whisper, to myself,” he went on, his dark eyes fixed upon her, and his voice lowered, “that Helène of Bourbon, Princess of Brittany, could set a greater price upon the love of a man—and that man an Englishman—than upon her country’s salvation. I would not even suffer so dishonouring a thought to creep into my brain. Yet I will remember that you are a girl—a woman—that is to say, a creature of strange moods; and I remind you that the marriage of a queen entails only the giving of a hand, her heart remains always at her disposal, and never yet has a queen of France been without her lover!”
She looked up at him with burning cheeks.
“You have spoken bitterly to me,” she said, “but from your point of view I have deserved it. Perhaps I have been weak; after all, men are not so very different. They are all ignoble. You are right when you call us women creatures of moods. To-day I should prefer the convent to marriage with any man. But listen! If you can persuade me that my marriage with Henri is necessary for his acceptance by the people of France, if I am assured of that, I will yield.”
Mr. Sabin drew a long breath of relief, Blanche had succeeded, then. Even in that moment he found time to realise that, without her aid, he would have run a terrible risk of failure. He sat down and spoke calmly, but impressively.
“From my point of view,” he said, “and I have considered the subject exhaustively, I believe that it is absolutely necessary. You and Henri represent the two great Houses, who might, with almost equal right, claim the throne. The result of your union must be perfect unanimity. Now, suppose that Henri stands alone; don’t you see that your cousin, Louis of Bourbon, is almost as near in the direct line? He is young and impetuous, without ballast, but I believe ambitious. He would be almost sure to assert himself. At any rate, his very existence would certainly lead to factions, and the splitting up of nobles into parties. This is the greatest evil we could possibly have to face. There must be no dissensions whatever during the first generation of the re-established monarchy. The country would not be strong enough to bear it. With you married to Henri, the two great Houses of Bourbon and Ortrens are allied. Against their representative there would be no one strong enough to lift a hand. Have I made it clear?”
“Yes,” the girl answered, “you have made it very clear. Will you let me consider for a few moments?”