“For your own sake, Countess,” he begged, earnestly, “I beg that you will leave me. At any moment we may be interrupted. Messages are brought to me continually—and the hour is late.”
“I am the Countess of Reist,” she answered, proudly, “and the people of Theos know me. I have come to ask you a question. You must hear me, and you must answer me.”
He smiled.
“You are a little peremptory,” he said. “Never mind! The question?”
“There have been rumours, your Majesty, of a marriage between you and the American, Miss Van Decht.”
He looked across at her in displeased surprise.
“These are no times for thought or speech of such things,” he answered.
She turned upon him with a sudden fierceness. A spot of angry colour burned in her cheeks.
“You are wrong,” she exclaimed. “I have come to you resolved to know the truth. Listen, your Majesty. There are those who say that in your long exile you have forgotten all that is due to your birth and your country. They say that you are at heart a democrat. That it is in your mind to marry this daughter of an American tradesman, to offer her to the people of Theos as their queen.”
“It is true,” he answered. “What of it?”