He shrugged his shoulders.
“Why not? There is excitement in it. One travels everywhere, meets strange types of people, penetrates into unknown countries, carries often one’s life in one’s hands. Oh, it’s not a bad life.”
“Perhaps,” she answered, “I do not quite understand. Our newspapers in Theos are different. You then are content?”
Again that curious searching gaze from the most beautiful eyes into which he had ever looked. Brand, in whose life women had played a small part, was unaccountably ill at ease. His easy nonchalance of manner had deserted him. Content! He looked for a moment into his future, and was astonished to find in it a new emptiness. She bent over towards him, and at her touch a thrill went through his veins, and set his heart beating to a new music.
“Just now,” she murmured, “you told the King—that you envied him. Was it true?”
“For the moment,” he answered, “I think that it was.”
“You then would like to be a king?”
He laughed, and answered her with a forced lightness.
“I? Not I! It would not suit me at all.”
“What did you mean, then?” she persisted.