“I want you to be gentle to me now, sire,” she replied quickly, “for what I have to say may try your patience.”
“Nay, that could never be.”
He did not speak in a tone of gallantry or artificial compliment, nor even with any of the confusion or shyness likely in one so young and so unused to dealing in affairs of love, but with a certain hardness and hauteur, the mark of absolute sincerity and complete self-command.
It was impossible to believe that he would ever waste himself in mere pleasantness; he did not trouble even to smile, but looked at the lady gravely with his strange blue eyes that were of so rare a color and so curious an expression.
“You think that I please your fancy,” she said, with a flutter of color in her face.
“I know that you do,” he replied seriously. “You are very wonderful. But Count Piper was wrong,” he added grimly, “when he thought that you could influence me.”
“Yet I am going to try and do so,” said Viktoria.
“Yes?” he seemed faintly amused.
“I want you to forget me, to forget the chase, to leave the wine, and become the man your father was.”
These words were so unexpected that for a moment his composure was disturbed.