The King smiled. "My dear madame, you forget that it is you who insist upon submitting yourself to his authority."
"That may be, Sire; yet, I appeal to your sense of fairness. Should he be permitted to exercise a husband's authority to imprison me, and, at the same time, deny that he is my husband?"
Of course, theoretically, she was in the right. My action was, in that particular, utterly inconsistent with my position and protestations. For a moment, I was a trifle uneasy as to the King's answer.
But he brushed it lightly aside.
"The circumstances of the case are so extraordinary, madame, that I fear it cannot well be judged by the usual standard."
She smiled very sweetly. "Which means that I am to be held to the strict obligations of my position, but that the Grand Duke Armand can perpetrate any inconsistency he choose."
The King smiled back at her. "I do not doubt that His Royal Highness will be most happy to be relieved of the necessity for being inconsistent," he said.
"Good!" she exclaimed. "I am ready to leave Dornlitz and Valeria this very day."
The King turned to me, interrogatingly.
"Then, you admit you are not Madeline Dalberg?" I asked.