The rigid moralist, reasoning from a distance, will say that it was Wilfrid’s duty to retire immediately in favour of the husband: but let that moralist be in the like situation, with a beautiful woman clinging to him, her lovely eyes appealing for aid, the perfume of her dress casting an intoxicating spell around her, and he would do as Wilfrid did, who, casting aside nice ethical consideration, silently vowed that Marie should not be led off against her will.
The Czar stood perfectly confounded at his wife’s declaration.
“She calls him ‘Wilfrid’! Says she is ‘his alone’! My God! is this the language of innocence?”
“She is not in her right mind,” intervened Pauline hastily. “She——”
But the emperor cut her short before she could make the necessary explanation.
“It is easy to see that. He has corrupted her nature.”
“The Czarina,” said Wilfrid, though it grated upon him to use the title, “has lived at Runö as purely as a vestal maiden. My word of honour upon it.”
In view of Marie’s attitude at that moment the Czar might be pardoned for declining to accept Wilfrid’s statement.
“Your word! Yours!” he retorted with ineffable disdain.