“When you have concluded your interview with my wife, Sir,—an interview of which I had no previous knowledge,” he said quietly, addressing the King; “I shall be glad to have one of my own with her!”
The King answered him calmly enough.
“Your wife,—as you call her,—is a very incorrigible young person,” he said. “The sooner she returns to her companions, the fisher-folk on The Islands, the better! From her looks I imagined she might have sense; but I fear that is lacking to her composition! However, she is perfectly willing to consider her marriage with you dissolved, if you desire it. I trust you will desire it;—here, now, and at once, in my presence and that of the Queen, your mother;—and thus a very unpleasant and unfortunate incident in your career will be satisfactorily closed!”
Prince Humphry smiled.
“Dissolve the heavens and its stars into a cup of wine, and drink them all down at one gulp!” he said; “And then, perhaps, you may dissolve my marriage with this lady! If you consider it illegal, put the question to the Courts of Law;—to the Pope, who most strenuously supports the sanctity of the marriage-tie;—ask all who know anything of the sacrament, whether, when two people love each other, and are bound by holy matrimony to be as one, and are mutually resolved to so remain, any earthly power can part them! ‘Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.’ Is that mere lip mockery, or is it a holy bond?”
The King gave an impatient gesture.
“There is no use in argument,” he said, “when argument has to be carried on with such children as yourselves. What cannot be done by persuasion, must be done by force. I wished to act kindly and reasonably by both of you—and I had hoped better things from this interview,—but as matters have turned out, it may as well be concluded.”
“Wait!” said Gloria, disengaging herself gently from her husband’s embrace; “I have something to say which ought to meet your wishes, even though it may not be all you desire. I will not promise to give up my husband;—I will not promise never to see him, and never to write to him—but I will swear to you one thing that should completely put your fears and doubts of me at rest!”
Both the King and Queen looked at her wonderingly;—a brighter, more delicate beauty seemed to invest her,—she stood very proudly upright, her small head lifted,—her rich hair glistening in the soft sunshine that streamed in subdued tints through the high stained-glass windows of the room,—her figure, slight and tall, was like that of the goddess dreamt of by Endymion.
“You are so unhappy already,” she continued, turning to the Queen; “You have lost so much, and you need so much, that I should be sorry to add to your burden of grief! If I thought I could make you glad,—if I thought I could make you see the world through my eyes, with all the patient, loving human hearts about you, waiting for the sympathy you never give; I would come to you often, and try to find the warm pulse of you somewhere under all that splendour which you clothe yourself in, and which is as valueless to me as the dust on the common road! And if I could show you” and here she fixed her steadfast glance upon the King,—“where you might win friends instead of losing them,—if I could persuade you to look and see where the fires of Revolution are beginning to smoulder and kindle under your very Throne,—if I could bear messages from you of compassion and tenderness to all the disaffected and disloyal, I would ask you on my knees to let me be your daughter in affection, as I am by marriage; and I would unveil to you the secrets of your own kingdom, which is slowly but steadily rising against you! But you judge me wrongly—you estimate me falsely,—and where I might have given aid, your own misconception of me makes me useless! You consider me low-born and a mere peasant! How can you be sure of that?—for truly I do not know who I am, or where I came from. For aught I can tell, the storm was my father, and the sea my mother,—but my parents may as easily have been Royal! You judge me half-educated,—and wholly unworthy to be your son’s wife. Will the ladies of your Court compete with me in learning? I am ready! What I hear of their attainments has not as yet commanded my respect or admiration,—and you yourself as King, do nothing to show that you care for either art or learning! I wonder, indeed, that you should even pause to consider whether your son’s wife is educated or not!”