As Seymour, the ardent young man, approached her with a passionate salutation, she stepped shyly back and pushed away his hand.
“How! you will not allow me to kiss your hand?” asked he, and she thought she observed on his face a slight, scornful smile. “You make me the happiest of mortals by inviting me to this interview, and now you stand before me rigid and cold, and I am not once permitted to clasp you in my arms, Elizabeth!”
Elizabeth! He had called her by her first name without her having given him permission to do so. That offended her. In the midst of her confusion, that aroused the pride of the princess, and made her aware how much she must have forgotten her own dignity, when another could be so forgetful of it.
She wished to regain it. At this moment she would have given a year of her life if she had not taken this step—if she had not invited the earl to this meeting.
She wanted to try and regain in his eyes her lost position, and again to become to him the princess.
Pride in her was still mightier than love. She meant her lover should at the same time bow before her as her favored servant.
Therefore she gravely said: “Earl Thomas Seymour, you have often begged us for a private conversation; we now grant it to you. Speak, then! what matter of importance have you to bring before us?”
And with an air of gravity she stepped to an easy-chair, on which she seated herself slowly and solemnly like a queen, who gives audience to her vassals.
Poor, innocent child, that in her unconscious trepidation wished to intrench herself behind her grandeur, as behind a shield, which might conceal her maidenly fear and girlish anxiety!
Thomas Seymour, however, divined her thoughts; and his proud and cold heart revolted against this child’s attempt to defy him.