“Let me be your friend, Princess. Do, I implore you.”
“Princess!” she cried bitterly. “Will you never learn to drop that title when you speak to me.”
He apologised, still holding her hand in his strong grip as pledge of his great friendship, and of his deep admiration for her. Love was entirely out of the question, he knew. He had realised that hard fact ever since the startling discovery of that photograph in the drawing-room of the Embassy.
At last, after a long silence, she spoke in a hard, intense voice, quite unusual to her, for she was full of suppressed emotion.
“If you really are my friend I—I wonder,” she hesitated, “if you would do something for me—something to assist me?”
“Most willingly,” he cried. “What is it?”
“I—I hardly like to ask it, but I have no other true and confidential friend in Rome except Renata. And as a maid she cannot help me in this matter without arousing suspicion in a certain quarter.”
“What can I do? I’m ready to assist you in any way in my power,” he answered her quickly.
“Even though it necessitates a journey to Brussels?”
“To Brussels!” echoed Hubert in surprise. Then he added: “Of course—anywhere that may be necessary.”