"That's a story," he growled, "you are very delicate. I do not know how to wait the season to send you to Ems, that you may take the baths for which you are longing."
"I do not want to go there now."
"Why not?"
"I have been thinking it over. You would be unable to leave your post to go with me; and to be weeks, months, away from you, not ever to see you, is more than I could bear. I would so much rather stay here. Indeed, I am quite well."
"What!" cried the Grand Duke, with a wild outburst of joy. "You love me so much that you cannot live without me? that you would care for nothing if you were away from me? Oh, my own true pearl of women!" And taking up his wife in his strong arms he laughed, caressed, and covered her with a shower of fiery kisses. "And they would separate me from my wife! A fine idea, eh? Shall I throw you into this pond?" And he swung her in his arms like a little child. "Are you afraid that I shall throw you in? Ha, ha, ha! and do you think I would let them make you Princess of Lovicz and be parted from you? That I would repay you for your love and faithfulness with a title, and take another to wife? Are you afraid of it? Shall I toss you into the pond? Hush!"
Johanna twined her arms round her husband's neck, kissed him, and murmured, softly:
"Were you to dishonor me and chase me from you, I would come back to you again. Were you to humiliate me from your wife into your mistress or maid-servant, I would still serve and love you. I cannot do otherwise."
"Ha, ha, ha! And from such a woman they would have torn me. Hallo! Araktseieff! This way, man. I've found her."
When Araktseieff, turning into the winding path, caught sight of the Grand Duke with Johanna in his arms, he knew what had happened.
"Tell them," shouted the Czarevitch when he was still at some distance, and in a voice hoarse with emotion—"tell them that I do not give up a wife who loves me for a whole empire that hates me! When are you and your Chevalier Galban going back?"