“With the king’s command?” asked he, in astonishment. “I did not know that Henry the Eighth could control my heart. And, at any rate, I would never concede him that right. Say quickly, then, sister, what is it? What means this about the king’s command, and what matrimonial scheme have you women been again contriving? For I well know that you and my mother have no rest with the thought of seeing me still unmarried. You want to bestow on me, whether or no, the happiness of marriage; yet, nevertheless, it appears to me that you both have sufficiently learned from experience that this happiness is only imaginary, and that marriage in reality is, at the very least, the vestibule of hell.”
“It is true,” laughed the duchess; “the only happy moment of my married life was when my husband died. For in that I am more fortunate than my mother, who has her tyrant still living about her. Ah, how I pity my mother!”
“Dare not to revile our noble father!” cried the earl, almost threateningly. “God alone knows how much he has suffered from our mother, and how much he still suffers. He is not to blame for this unhappy marriage. But you have not come to talk over these sad and disgraceful family matters, sister! You wish to warn me, did you say?”
“Yes, warn you!” said the duchess, tenderly, as she took her brother’s hand and led him to the ottoman. “Come, let us sit down here, Henry, and let us for once chat confidentially and cordially, as becomes brother and sister. Tell me, who is Geraldine?”
“A phantom, an ideal! I have told you that already.”
“You really love, then, no lady at this court?”
“No, none! There is among all these ladies, with whom the queen has surrounded herself, not one whom I am able to love.”
“Ah, your heart then is free, Henry; and you will be so much more easily inclined to comply with the king’s wish.”
“What does the king wish?”
She laid her head on her brother’s shoulder, and said in a low whisper: “That the Howard and Seymour families be at last reconciled; that at last they may reconcile the hatred, which has for centuries separated them, by means of a firm and sincere bond of love.”