"Why, Alma, I've been looking for you so long."
"Is that what brought you here, my lady?" he asked tensely.
"It was the king's palanquin that brought me here," she answered archly.
His brow lowered. "Perhaps the same conveyance will carry you back?"
"Perhaps."
"Zara, I don't like to see you here."
"Why not? It is glorious! I love the magnificence of the court. It is breath to my nostrils. I have never lived before."
"Your eyes are blinded by the gilded surface and you do not see the rottenness beneath. When you know it as well as I—" and he laughed bitterly. "I cannot understand," he added soberly, "how your father allows you here, when he objected to me simply because I belonged to the court, though I hate everything that is connected with it."
"My father—you might know—he did not send me here. I came by the order of the king."
Alma looked startled. "Do you know what for?"