‘I have invited no one,’ answered the husband quietly. ‘Don’t stand hesitating when I tell you to do a thing; go and get ready directly! we are going into the country!’ he added in his most positive voice, and, though she shed many secret tears over the loss of the banquet, she ventured to oppose nothing more to his orders, but went up and dressed, and when the carriage came round she was nearly ready. In about five minutes she came down.
‘I won’t say anything this time about your keeping me waiting,’ he said when she appeared; ‘but mind it does not happen again, or you will be sorry for it.’
The queen had a favourite little dog, which she fondled and talked to all the way, to show she was offended with her husband and independent of his conversation.
Watching an opportunity when she was silent, the husband said to the little dog, ‘Jump on to my lap.’
‘He’s not going to obey you,’ said the queen contemptuously; ‘he’s my dog!’
‘I keep no one about me who does not obey me,’ said her husband quietly; and he took out his pistol and shot the dog through the head.
The queen began to understand that the husband she had chosen was not a person to be trifled with, nor did she venture even to utter a complaint.
When they arrived at the villa, as the queen was going to her apartment to undress, her husband called her to him into his room and bade her pull off his boots.
The queen’s first impulse was to utter a haughty refusal; but by this time she had learnt that, as she would certainly have to give in to him in the end, it was better to do his bidding with a good grace at the first. So she said nothing, but knelt down and pulled off his boots.
When she had done this he got up and said: ‘Now sit down in this armchair and I will take off your shoes; for my way is that one should help the other. If you behave to me as a wife should, you need never fear but that I shall behave to you as a husband should.’