“A very just reminder!” said Von Glauben, well pleased;—“Consider Gloria to be the new Proserpine to-day! And now she must forgive me for playing the part of a tyrannical friend, and urging her to hasten her preparations.”
Gloria bent down and kissed Ronsard gently.
“Trust me, little father!” she whispered; “You have not taught me great lessons of truth in vain!”
Aloud she said.
“The King and Queen wish to see me and speak with me,—and I know the reason why! They desire to fully explain to me all that my husband has already told me,—which is that according to the rules made for monarchs, our marriage is inadmissible. Well!—I have my answer ready; and you, Professor, shall hear me give it! Wait but a few moments and I will come with you.”
She left the room. The two men looked at each other in silence. At last Von Glauben said:—
“Ronsard, I think you will soon reap the reward of your ‘life-philosophy’ system! You have fed that girl from her childhood on strong intellectual food, and trained the mental muscles rather than the physical ones. Upon my word, I believe you will see a good result!”
Ronsard, who had grown much calmer and quieter during the last few minutes, raised himself a little from the chair into which he had sunk with an air of fatigue, and looked dreamily towards the open lattice window, where the roses hung in a curtain of crimson blossom.
“If it be so, I shall praise God!” he said; “But the years have come and gone with me so peacefully since I made my home on these quiet shores, that the exercise of what I have presumed to call ‘philosophy’ has had no chance. Philosophy! It is well to preach it,—but when the blow of misfortune falls, who can practise it?”
“You can,” replied the Professor;—“I can! Gloria can! I think we all three have clear brains. There is a tendency in the present age to overlook and neglect the greatest power in the whole human composition,—the mental and psychical part of it. Now, in the present curious drama of events, we have a chance given to exercise it; and it will be our own faults if we do not make our wills rule our destinies!”