"So goes the world—our world," said the king, knitting his brows and seeming to fall for a moment into a sad reverie.
"I am frightened," she whispered. "Should I be frightened if I loved him?"
"I have been told so," said the king, smiling again. "But the fear has a way of being mastered then." And he drew her to him, and gave her a hearty brother's kiss, telling her to take heart. "You'll thaw the fellow yet," said the king, "though I grant you he is icy enough." For the king himself had been by no means what he called an icy man.
But Osra was not satisfied, and sought to assuage the pain of her heart by adorning herself most carefully for the prince's coming, hoping to fire him to love. For she thought that if he loved she might, although since he did not she could not. And surely he did not, or all the tales of love were false! Thus she came to receive him very magnificently arrayed. There was a flush on her cheek, and an uncertain, expectant, fearful look in her eyes; and thus she stood before him, as he fell on his knee and kissed her hand. Then he rose, and declared his thanks, and promised his devotion; but as he spoke the flush faded, and the light died from her eyes; and when at last he drew near to her, and offered to kiss her cheek, her eyes were dead, and her face pale and cold as she suffered him to touch it. He was content to touch it but once, and seemed not to know how cold it was; and so, after more talk of his father's pleasure and his pride, he took his leave, promising to come again the next day. She ran to the window when the door was closed on him, and thence watched him mount his horse and ride away slowly, with his head bent and his eyes downcast; yet he was a noble gentleman, stately and handsome, kind and true. The tears came suddenly into her eyes and blurred her sight as she leant watching from behind the hanging curtains of the window. Though she dashed them angrily away, they came again, and ran down her pale, cold cheeks, mourning the golden vision that seemed gone without fulfilment.
That evening there came a gentleman from the Prince of Glottenberg, carrying most humble excuses from his master, who (so he said) was prevented from waiting on the princess the next day by a certain very urgent affair that took him from Strelsau, and would keep him absent from the city all day long; and the gentleman delivered to Osra a letter from the prince, full of graceful and profound apologies, and pleading an engagement that his honor would not let him break; for nothing short of that, said he, should have kept him from her side. There followed some lover's phrases, scantily worded, and frigid in an assumed passion. But Osra smiled graciously, and sent back a message, readily accepting all that the prince urged in excuse. And she told what had passed to the king, with her head high in the air, and a careless haughtiness, so that even the king did not rally her, nor yet venture to comfort her, but urged her to spend the next day in riding with the queen and him; for they were setting out for Zenda, where the king was to hunt in the forest, and she could ride some part of the way with them, and return in the evening. And she, wishing that she had sent first to the prince, to bid him not come, agreed to go with her brother; it was better far to go than to wait at home for a lover who would not come.
Thus, the next morning, they rode out, the king and queen with their retinue, the princess attended by one of her guard, named Christian Hantz, who was greatly attached to her, and most jealous in praise and admiration of her. This fellow had taken on himself to be very angry with Prince Ludwig's coldness, but dared say nothing of it. Yet, impelled by his anger, he had set himself to watch the prince very closely; and thus he had, as he conceived, discovered something that brought a twinkle into his eye and a triumphant smile to his lips as he rode behind the princess. Some fifteen miles she accompanied her brother, and then, turning with Christian, took another road back to the city. Alone she rode, her mind full of sad thoughts; while Christian, behind, still wore his malicious smile. But, presently, although she had not commanded him, he quickened his pace, and came up to her side, relying on the favor which she always showed him, for excuse.
"Well, Christian," said she, "have you something to say to me?"
For answer he pointed to a small house that stood among the trees, some way from the road, and he said:
"If I were Ludwig and not Christian, yet I would be here where Christian is, and not there where Ludwig is." And he pointed still at the house.
She faced round on him in anger at his daring to speak to her of the prince, but he was a bold fellow, and would not be silenced now that he had begun to speak. He knew also that she would bear much from him; so he leant over towards her, saying: