But the two on the terrace also talked.
"I do not yet understand it," said Princess Osra. "For on the first day I loved you, and on the second I loved you, and on the third, and the fourth, and every day I loved you. Yet the first day was not like the second, nor the second like the third, nor any day like any other. And to-day, again, is unlike them all. Is love so various and full of changes?"
"Is it not?" he asked with a smile. "For while you were with the queen, talking of I know not what—"
"Nor I, indeed," said Osra hastily.
"I was with the king, and he, saying that forewarned was forearmed, told me very strange and pretty stories. Of some a report had reached me before—"
"And yet you came to Strelsau?"
"While of others, I had not heard."
"Or you would not have come to Strelsau?"
The Grand Duke, not heeding these questions, proceeded to his conclusion:
"Love, therefore," said he, "is very various. For M. de Mérosailles—"