"Ah, so? I beg your pardon, Your Excellency."
He handed her the flower with a deep bow, which she accepted with a barely noticeable inclination of the head. Then the heavy white train glided past him, and he was alone.
In vain! Everything glided off this icy nature.
Hartmut stamped his foot angrily. Only ten minutes ago he had passed such harsh judgment on all women, without an exception, to the Prince. Now he had sung again that charming tune which he had tried so often successfully, and had found one who resisted it. But the proud, spoiled man would not believe that he could lose the game which he had won so often, when just here he was so anxious to win it.
And would it really remain only a game? He had not as yet accounted to himself for it, but he felt that the passion which drew him to the beautiful woman was mingled at times with hatred.
They were conflicting emotions which had been deeply stirred when he walked by her side through the forest--half admiring, half repellent. But it was just that which made the chase so interesting to the practised huntsman.
Love! The high, pure meaning of the word had remained foreign to the son of Zalika. When he learned to feel, he was living at his mother's side, she who had made such shameful play of her husband's love; and the women with whom she associated were no better. The later life which she led with her son, unsettled and adventurous, with no firm ground under their feet, had finally crushed out the last remnant of idealism in the young man. He learned to despise before he learned to love, and now he felt the merited humiliation given him to be an insult.
"Struggle on," he muttered; "you battle against yourself. I have seen and felt it; and the one who does that, does not conquer in such a struggle."
CHAPTER XXIV.
A slight noise at the entrance caused Hartmut to look up. It was the Ambassador who appeared on the threshold, casting a searching glance into the room. He came for his wife, whom he thought still there.