"Yet, you have maintained an acquaintance with him."
"If that be the case, my acquaintance has been pure and honest."
"You confess the fact, then?"
"I have not said so," replied Consuelo, who was afraid, by so simple a confession, of compromising the princess.
"Do you deny it, then?"
"Were it the case, I would have no reasons to deny it. Why, however, does Captain Von Kreutz thus question me? What is all this to him?"
"Apparently, the king is interested in the matter," said Frederick, taking his hat off abruptly, and placing it on the head of a statue of a nymph in white marble which stood on a tablet.
"If the king honored me by a visit," said Consuelo, "it would, I think, be to hear music, (she overcame the terror which took possession of her,) and I would sing the Ariana Abandonata to him."
"The king is not to be led astray. When he asks a question, he wishes to be answered clearly and distinctly. What were you doing last night in the king's palace? You see, the king has a right to act as a master at your house, since you go to his at improper hours, and without his permission."
Consuelo trembled from head to foot. Luckily, however, in danger of every kind, she had a presence of mind which always saved her miraculously. She remembered that the king often said what was false, to discover what was true, and that he loved to acquire secrets by surprise rather than by any other means. "That is a strange charge," said she, "and I do not know what I can say to it."