“It is my fortune,” he said, “good or bad, to know more of the world outside than those who came before me. Please God, I am going to leave Theos a richer and happier country when my days here are spent. If we are spared from war I shall do it.”
“In future,” Marie said, “I shall dread war less. I begin to see that there are other evil things.”
She rose and bowed slightly to the King.
“Your Majesty will excuse me,” she said. “I find the air a little cold.”
She passed down the terrace steps, her maid a few yards behind. A certain reserve fell upon the others.
“I am afraid,” Sara said to Nicholas of Reist, “that your sister does not approve of me.”
He hesitated.
“Marie,” he said, “is passionately faithful to all the traditions of our family and our race. This is a conservative country, and no one more so than she. I myself am in close sympathy with her. Yet my reason tells me that we are both wrong. Our peasantry are finding already the struggle for existence a severe one—a single failure in the crops would mean a famine. It has occurred to me, Mr. Van Decht, that the advice of a man of affairs such as yourself may be very useful to us.”
Ughtred rose up.
“You shall talk progress together,” he said, “while I show Miss Van Decht my pictures.”