'Helena,' the Dictator said, with an emotion that he tried in vain to repress, 'let me thank you for your birthday-gift.' And he lifted her head towards him and kissed her lips.
'I am to go with you?' she asked fervently, gazing up into his eyes with her own tear-stained, anxious, wistful eyes.
'You are to go with me,' he answered quietly, 'wherever I go, to my death, or to yours.'
'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'how happy I am! At last at last, I am happy!'
She was clinging around his neck. He gently, tenderly, lifted her arms from him, and held her a little apart, and looked at her with a proud affection and a love before which her eyes drooped. She was overborne by the rush of her own too great happiness. What did she care whether they succeeded or failed in their enterprise on Gloria? What did she care about being the Dictatress, if there be any such word, of Gloria? Alas! what did she care in that proud, selfish moment for the future and the prosperity of Gloria? She was only thinking that he loved her, and that she was to be allowed to go with him to the very last, that she was to be allowed to die with him. For she had not at that moment the faintest hope or thought of being allowed to live with him. Her horizon was much more limited. She could only think that they would go out to Gloria and get killed there, together. But was not that enough? They would be killed together. What better could she ask or hope? Youth is curiously generous with its life-blood. It delights to think of throwing life away, not merely for some beloved being, but even with some beloved being. As time goes on and the span of life shrinks, the seeming value of life swells, and the old man is content to outlive his old wife, the old wife to outlive the husband of her youth.
'You are fit to be an empress!' the Dictator exclaimed, and he pressed her again to his heart. He did not overrate her courage and her devotion, but, being a man, he a little—just a little—misunderstood her. She was not thinking of empire, she was thinking of him. She was not thinking of sharing power with him. Her heart was swollen with joy at the thought that she was to be allowed to share danger and death with him. It is not easy for a daring, ambitious man to enter into such thoughts. They are the property, and the copyright, and the birthright of woman.
But Helena was pleased and proud indeed that he had called her fit to be an empress. Fit to be his empress: what praise beyond that could human voice give to her? Her face flushed crimson with delight and pride, and she stood on tiptoe up to him and kissed him.
Then she started away, for the door of the conservatory opened. But she returned to him again.
'See!' Helena exclaimed triumphantly, 'here is my father!' And she caught the Dictator's hand in hers and drew it to her breast.
This was the sight that showed itself to a father's eyes. Sir Rupert had not thought of anything like this. He was utterly thrown out of his mental orbit for the moment. He had never thought of his daughter as thus demonstrative and thus unashamed.