“Ah! Yes, I know,” she replied impatiently. “But I really can’t help it. Oh, how heartily I wish that I had never been a princess! The very title grates upon my nerves.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because of the utter emptiness of it all—because,” and her voice changed—“because of the tragedy of it all.”
“Tragedy! What do you mean?” he echoed quickly, staring at her.
The waiter again entered interrupting, yet Waldron saw from the change in her countenance that there was something hidden in her heart which she desired to confide to him, but for some reason she dare not speak the truth.
As the man busied himself with the plates, recollections of that young Frenchman, Henri Pujalet, arose before the Englishman. He remembered the passionate meeting beneath the palms, and her strict injunctions to exert every precaution so that Gigleux should suspect nothing.
Where was Pujalet? he wondered. Had their affection now cooled, and the secret lover, in ignorance of her real identity and believing her to be poor and dependent upon her uncle, had with a Frenchman’s proverbial inconstancy returned to his own beloved boulevards?
From the Princess’s attitude he felt convinced that it was so, and he had, in consequence, become much relieved.
When Egisto had bowed low and again disappeared, having changed the dishes, Waldron looked across at his pretty companion, and in a voice of deeper earnestness, said:
“May I not be permitted to know the nature of this tragedy? Remember, you alone know the tragedy of my own love. Is yours, I wonder, of a similar nature?”