“It was my fault,” said the girl penitently;—“I had the fancy to sing; and I would sing, though the good Professor told me not to do so!”
The Prince was silent. He was bracing his mind to the inevitable. He had determined that on this very night Gloria should know the truth. For he was instinctively certain that if he went abroad, as his father wished him to do, some means would be taken to remove her altogether from the country before his return; and his idea was to tell her all, and make her accompany him on his travels. As his wife, she was bound to obey him, he argued within himself; she should, she must go with him! Unconsciously Gloria’s next words supplied him with an opening to the subject.
“Why did you never tell me that the Professor was in the King’s service?” she asked. “He seemed to know him quite well,—indeed, almost as a friend!”
“He is the King’s physician,” answered the Prince abruptly; “And, therefore, he is very greatly in the King’s confidence.”
He walked on, still keeping his arm round her, and seemed not to see the half-frightened glance she gave him.
“The King’s physician!” she echoed;—“He does not seem a great person at all,—he is quite a simple old German man!”
Her lover smiled.
“To be physician to the King, my Gloria, is not a very wonderful honour! It merely implies that the man so chosen is perhaps the ablest fencer with sickness and death; the greatness is in the simple old German himself, not in the King’s preference. Von Glauben is a good man.”
“I know it;” said Gloria gently; “He is good,—and very kind. He said he would always be my friend,—but he was very strange in his manner yesterday, and almost I was vexed with him. Do you know what he said? He asked me what I should do if you—my husband, had deceived me? Can you imagine such a thing?”
Now was the supreme moment. With a violently beating heart the Prince halted, and putting both arms round her waist, drew her up to him in such a way that their eyes looked close into each other’s, and their lips were within kissing touch.