“Perhaps he ought not to be?” suggested Sir Roger with a slight touch of anxiety.
“I do not know—I cannot tell! This is the way of it, Roger—see!” And taking off his spectacles, he polished them with due solemnity. “If I were a King, and ruled over a country swarming with dissatisfied subjects,—if I had a fox for a Premier,—and was in love with a woman who could not possibly be my wife,—I should not be in high spirits!”
“Nor I!” said De Launay curtly. “But the fox is not Premier yet. Do you think he ever will be?”
Von Glauben shrugged his shoulders.
“He is bound to be, I presume. What else remains to do? Upset everything? Government, deputies and all?”
“Just that!” responded Sir Roger. “The People will do it, if the King does not.”
“The King will do anything he is asked to do—now—” said the Professor significantly; “If the right person asks him!”
“You forget—she does not know—” Here checking himself abruptly, Sir Roger walked to the window and looked out. It was a fair and peaceful afternoon,—the ocean heaved placidly, covered with innumerable wavelets, over which the seabirds flew and darted, their wings shining like silver and diamonds as they dipped and circled up and down and round the edges of the rocky coast. Far off, a faint rim of amethyst under a slowly sailing white cloud could be recognized as the first line of the shore of The Islands.
“Do you ever go and see the beautiful ‘Gloria’ girl now?” asked Sir Roger suddenly. “The King has never mentioned her since the day we saw her. And you have never explained the mystery of your acquaintance with her,—nor whether it is true that Prince Humphry was specially attracted by her. I shrewdly suspect——”
“What?”