“Sara, I have been dreaming since then, and I thought that when my people got to understand me a little more, to trust me and believe in me, I would go to them and say ‘I am going to give you a Queen. Only I am a man as you are men, and I must choose as you have chosen, the one woman who has my heart.’ And, Sara, there might have been difficulties, but I think that we should have smoothed them away——”
“If!” she echoed.
“If the woman I love, Sara, cared a little for me.”
It was dusk, and Ughtred scarcely knew how it happened, but she was in his arms and they were very happy. It was dusk then, but the stars were shining when the cathedral clock reminded him that his love-making must be brief.
“Dear,” she murmured, “if you must go, at least remember that you have made me very happy.”
“And I,” he answered, cheerfully, “am afraid no longer of anything. I have become a raving optimist. I feel that if the war comes we shall sweep the Turks from the face of the earth.”
She held out her hand and drew him to her.
“You will not repent?” she murmured. “You ought to marry a princess.”
He kissed her on the lips.
“Every woman in the world,” he answered, “is a princess to the man who loves her. You are my princess. There will never be any other!”