“Forget you?” he asked.
“Sire, whether my words have any effect with you or no, after to-day I shall never speak to you alone. I am not the woman your councilor takes me to be. He thinks that I would be your plaything, and that through me he would work his way with you.”
“And so you will have none of me?” asked the King quietly; “I could have loved you.”
“Sire, I have done with love. And I was never ambitious.”
“But I,” smiled Karl, “I have not even begun with love. And I was always ambitious.”
She flashed at him with sudden animation and force.
“Then if you are ambitious leave love alone. Turn your back on women until you take your Queen—be the one King in Europe who is not ruled by a petticoat. Be a man like the hero of antiquity, feared, obeyed, revered by men, not cajoled, flattered, led by women!”
He gave her a dazzling look.
“And if I wished I could be such a one,” he said strongly.
“And do you hesitate? There is a man’s work—a King’s work ready to your hand—a nation that your forefathers left great looking to you for help against three terrible enemies, the world before you in which to win glory.”