Before he could get further, she continued, sinking lower at his feet:
"Ah me, my Lord, if now thou art thinking me bold and forward, and outcast from natural pride, what can I but plead the greater love I bear you as my benefactor and sovereign? ... It may be immodest to thus forestall my Lord's honorable intent, and decline being his wife before he has himself proposed it; yet I pray him to consider that with this avowal from me, he may go hence and affirm, God approving the truth, that he thought better of his design, and did not make me any overture of marriage, and there will be no one to suffer but me.... The evil-minded will talk, and judge me punished for my presumption. Against them I shall always have a pure conscience, and the knowledge of having rescued my Lord from an associate on his throne who does not love him with wifely devotion."
Pausing there, the Princess looked into his face, her own suffused. His head drooped; insomuch that the tall helmet with its glitter, and the cuirass, and fine mail reenforced by the golden spurs and jewelled sword and sword-harness, but deepened the impression of pain bewrayed on his countenance.
"Then it is as I have heard," he said, dejectedly. "The rustic hind may have the mate of his choice, and there is preference allowed the bird and wild wolf. The eye of faith beholds marriages of love in meeting waters and in clouds brought together from diverse parts. Only Kings are forbidden to select mates as their hearts declare. I, a master of life and death, cannot woo, like other men."
The Princess moved nearer him.
"My Lord," she said, earnestly, "is it not better to be denied choice than to be denied after choosing?"
"Speakest thou from experience?" he asked.
"No," she answered, "I have never known love except of all God's creatures alike."
"Whence thy wisdom then?"
"Perhaps it is only a whisper of pride."