"You did so greatly to-day, you ought to rest."
He was surprised.
"Did so greatly?"
"At the palace."
"Put the paper down. Now, O my Gul Bahar"—and he took her hand, and carried it to his cheek, and pressed it softly there—"deal me no riddle. What is it you say? One may do well, yet come out badly."
"I was at the market in my father Uel's this afternoon," she began, "when Sergius came in."
A face wonderfully like the face of the man he helped lead out to Golgotha flashed before the Prince, a briefest passing gleam.
"He heard you discourse before the Emperor. How wickedly that disgusting Gennadius behaved!"
"Yes," the Prince responded darkly, "a sovereign beset with such spirits is to be pitied. But what did the young man think of my proposal to the Emperor?"
"But for one verse in the Testament of Christ"—