“It is, mademoiselle. If you have chosen this terrace as a promenade, I will go elsewhere.”
“Well, if I was a king, I guess I’d marry the woman I loved.”
“Pardon me, I am not only a king. I am a son of the house of Schwarzwald-Molzau, and we do not mingle the blood of Charlemagne with that of—manufacturers.”
“And so you sigh as a lover and obey as a son? But you wanted to marry Lord Usk’s sister once, I know, for Mr Hicks told me.”
The King’s eyes flashed gloomily. “I do not understand this catechism,” he said angrily. “It is intolerable! The Mortimer blood is equal to that of any semi-royal house in Europe, and there were special reasons why a marriage with Lady Philippa would have been very pleasing to my subjects.”
“Well, I guess a marriage with a Princess of Arragon would about satisfy them, any way.”
“Not if she were a Catholic.”
“Is that so? Well, the girl you have just told that you love her and can’t marry her is a Princess of Arragon and a Protestant.”
“Impossible. I know the Prince of Arragon’s three daughters well, and Don Florian’s only daughter is married to another cousin of mine.”
“You are forgetting. There was a third brother.”