The news that the Crown Prince was returning with his bride, set all the country in a flutter of excitement, and the General Election being concluded, and the meeting of the new Government being deferred until after the Heir-Apparent’s return, the people of every city and town and province set themselves busily to work to prepare suitable festivities for the homecoming of the Royal pair. At The Islands especially the spirit of enthusiasm was complete—all sorts of ideas for fêtes and sports, and bonfires and illuminations, exercised the minds of the simple fisher-folk, who were wild with joy at the singular destiny that had befallen their ‘waif of the sea’ as they were wont to call the beautiful girl who had grown up among them,—and the aged Réné Ronsard was made the centre of their interest and attention,—even of their adulation. But Ronsard had grown very listless of late. His age began to tell heavily upon him, and the news that Gloria was returning in all triumph as Crown Princess, moved him but little.
“She would have been happier as a simple sailor’s wife!” he averred, when Professor von Glauben, who visited him constantly, sought to rouse him from the apathy into which he appeared to have sunk. “The greater the position, the heavier the burden!—the more outwardly brilliant the appearance of life, the deeper its secret bitterness!”
“But Gloria has Love with her, my friend!” urged the Professor; “And Love makes the bitterest things sweet!”
Ronsard’s aged eyes sparkled faintly.
“Ay, Love!” he echoed; “A dream—a delusion—and a snare! Unless it be a love strong enough to drag one down to death!—and then it is the strongest power in the world! It is a terror and a martyrdom,—and in nothing shall its desire be thwarted! If It calls—even kings obey!”
CHAPTER XXXII. — BETWEEN TWO PASSIONS
Slowly, and with hesitating steps, Sergius Thord mounted the long flight of stairs leading to the quiet attic which Lotys called ‘home.’ Here she lived; here she had chosen to live ever since Thord had made her, as he said, the ‘Soul of the Revolutionary Ideal.’ Here, since the King had conquered the Revolutionary Ideal altogether, and had made it a Loyalist centre, did she dwell still, though she had now some thoughts of yielding to the child Pequita’s earnest pleading, and taking up her abode with her and her father, in a pretty little house in the suburbs which, since Pequita’s success as première danseuse at the Opera, Sholto had been able to afford, and to look upon as something like a comfortable dwelling-place. For with the election of Thord to the dignity of a Deputy, had, of course, come the necessity of resigning his old quarters where his ‘Revolutionary’ meetings had been held,—and he now resided in a more ‘respectable’ quarter of the city, in such sober, yet distinctive fashion as became one who was a friend of the King’s, and who was likely to be a Minister some day, when he had further proved his political mettle. So that Sholto had no longer any need to try and eke out a scanty subsistence by letting rooms to revolutionists and ‘suspects’ generally,—and Thord himself had helped him to make a change for the better, as had also the King.
But Lotys had not as yet moved. She had lived so long among the desperately poor, who were accustomed to go to her for sympathy and aid, that she could not contemplate leaving so many sick and suffering and sorrowful ones alone to fight their bitter battle. So had she said, at least, to Thord, when he had endeavoured to persuade her to establish herself in greater comfort, and in a part of the city which had a ‘better-class’ reputation. She had listened to his suggestions with a somewhat melancholy smile.