“Not exactly; only to be used with it. Don’t you see? Perhaps you prefer a responsible position, and then it might be better for you to take a lower place.”
“I don’t quite see it,” said Caerleon; “but no doubt it’s all right, since it satisfies you.”
“Oh, don’t follow me!” she cried, passionately. “I may have led you wrong already. Is it too late to do anything?”
“Quite too late, I’m afraid,” said Caerleon. “I am as much King of Thracia as I can be before I’m crowned, I suppose. Won’t you congratulate me on my elevation, since I owe it to your influence?”
He held out his hand, and Nadia took it, but to his horror she stooped and touched it with her lips. “May God grant your Majesty a long and useful reign!” she said, and turned to fly, but Caerleon caught her wrist.
“Nadia, are you joking?” he said, angrily.
“Let me go! let me go!” she panted. “Oh, please let me go!” The cry seemed to be wrung from her by some sudden sharp pain, and Caerleon saw that her lips were quivering and her eyes full of tears. He loosed his hold, and she made her escape, leaving him gazing stupidly at the hand she had kissed.
“Oh, this little fool!” groaned Madame O’Malachy, at the partially open door of her room, whence she had witnessed the whole scene. “She might have had him at her feet at this moment, and now he may not be able to declare himself for weeks. And for what? A trifle, a caprice, a nothing! I snap my fingers at it! Will nothing but a crowned king serve you, mademoiselle? Surely it is as well to receive a crown with your husband as after him? Ah, these niceties of lovers’ etiquette! Who cares whether the marquis thinks that his prospective kingdom has induced you to accept him, or not? You know, and I know, that you have been in love with him since the second time you saw him. Fool! I have no patience with you,” and hurling these words through her clenched teeth at the absent Nadia, her mother hurried through two or three intermediate rooms and came upon Caerleon through a door at the end of the balcony.
“What, my dear marquis, is it you?” she cried, with a start. “You are early this morning. But perhaps I ought to say ‘your Majesty’? One cannot pretend not to know the reason of M. Drakovics’s presence here.”
“I hope M. Drakovics is happy,” returned Caerleon, in a tone which showed pretty plainly that he himself was not. “I have accepted the offer of the Thracian crown.”