“Let the Princess pardon the presumption of her servant, but word is come for the Prince of the Jews, entreating him to return immediately to Es Sham. The messenger has travelled day and night.”
Mlle. Mirkovics interpreted the words, and the Queen’s eyes filled with tears as they met Cyril’s. He had made an involuntary movement towards the door, but her gaze of entreaty drew him back.
“I am at your commands, madame,” he said, with forced calmness.
“If I ask you, you will stay?” she said, too low for the rest to hear, and her eyes marked, almost with agony, the struggle in his face.
“I will stay, Ernestine—if you ask me,” he replied at last. He spoke without enthusiasm, but with the desperate resolution to atone by one tremendous sacrifice for his past sins against her.
“But I don’t ask you. You must go—at once, if it is necessary. But come to me before you start, and tell me what has happened. Messieurs,” she turned again to Mr Hicks and Mansfield, “I regret to have had so little conversation with you. We must meet again—at Brutli, I hope. There is much that I wish to ask you.”
Again the gleam of that dazzling smile, for which, as Mr Hicks confided afterwards to Mansfield, he would have walked round the world, and the visitors retired. The moment they were gone, the Queen turned to Anna Mirkovics.
“Anna, you have disappointed me—grieved me bitterly. You will not forget!”
“How can I forget, madame? He leaves you now—even now—in a moment, for his policy.”
“I told him to go. He would have stayed. Why will you not consent to be happy, since I am? It breaks my heart to see how you hate him.”