She grew dizzy and uncertain of her footing; she could not answer. Suddenly a strong arm caught her,—she was drawn into a close, fierce, jealous clasp; warm lips caressed her hair, her brow, her eyes; and a voice whispered in her ear:
“You love me, Lotys! You love me! Hush!—do not deny it—you cannot deny it!—you know it, as I know it!—you have told me you love me! You love me, my Love! You love me!”
Another moment—and the King passed quietly out of the door with a bland ‘Good-night’ to Sholto, and joining his two companions, raised his hat to Lotys with a courteous salutation.
“Good-night, Madame!”
She stood in the doorway, shuddering violently from head to foot,—watching his tall figure disappear in the shadows of the street. Then stretching out her hands blindly, she gave a faint cry, and murmuring something inarticulate to the alarmed Sholto, fell senseless at his feet.
CHAPTER XXX. — KING AND SOCIALIST
To many persons of the servile or flunkey habit, the idea that a king should ever comport himself as an ordinary,—or extraordinary,—man, seems more or less preposterous; while to conceive him as endowed with dash, spirit, and a love of adventure is judged almost as absurd and impossible. The only potentate that ever appears, in legendary lore, to have indulged himself to his heart’s content in the sport of adopting a disguise and going about unrecognised among his subjects, is the witty and delightful hero of the ‘Arabian Nights’ Entertainment,’ Caliph Haroun Alraschid, who, as Tennyson describes him, had
“Deep eyes, laughter-stirred
With merriment of kingly pride;
Sole star of all that place and time,
I saw him in his golden prime.
The good Haroun Alraschid!”