Her face was set firmly as she answered, “I am not.”
“For no other reason than that you are not a free agent?”
Was it because he was catechising her with too much freedom that she turned on him and replied sharply? “For several other reasons.”
“Dare I ask for one?”
She gave him a curious glance, surprised, perhaps, at his persistent questioning. “I will give you one, an all-sufficient reason. I hate Prince Ludwig.”
“You might not if you knew him.”
“I could not do otherwise. I hate him, I hate him!”
Her vehemence seemed to surprise him. “It is a rash declaration to make,” he said. “I venture to think, Princess, that if you saw him you might after all recant.”
She shook her head impatiently. “Never. Nothing could ever make me like that man; not even were he to turn out the most charming fellow in the world. Ah, of course, he is your Prince, your future King, you are too loyal to hear a word said against him, even from a woman whom he has treated, to say the least, with disrespect.”
“If he has done that, my Princess——”