The lithe, clean-limbed man was silent, his head bent before her. What could he reply? He knew, alas! too well, that in following her from Germany to Paris he had acted very injudiciously. She was believed to be taking the baths at Aix, but a sudden caprice had seized her to run up to Paris and see her old French nurse, to whom she was much attached. He had learnt her intention in confidence, and had met her in Paris and shown her the city. It had been an indiscretion, he admitted.
Yet the recollection of those few delightful days of freedom remained like a pleasant dream. He recollected her childish delight of it all. It was out of the season, and they believed that they could go hither and thither, like the crowds of tourists do, without fear of recognition. Yet Fate, it seemed, had been against them, and their secret meeting was actually known!
“Cannot you see the foolishness of it all?” she asked in a low, serious voice. “Cannot you see, Carl, that your presence here lends colour to their suspicions? I have enemies—fierce, bitter enemies—as you must know too well, and yet you imperil me like this!” she cried reproachfully.
“I can make no defence, Princess,” he said lamely. “I can only regret deeply having caused you any annoyance.”
“Annoyance!” she echoed in anger. “Your injudicious actions have placed me in the greatest peril. The people have coupled our names, and you are known to have followed me on here.”
Her companion was silent, his eyes downcast, as though not daring to meet her reproachful gaze.
“I have been foolish—very foolish, I know,” she cried. “In the old days, when we knew each other at Wartenstein, a boy-and-girl affection sprang up between us; and then, when you left the University, they sent you as attaché to the Embassy in London, and we gradually forgot each other. You grew tired of diplomacy, and returned to find me the wife of the Crown Prince; and in a thoughtless moment I promised, at your request, to recommend you to a post in the private cabinet of the King. Since that day I have always regretted. I ought never to have allowed you to return. I am as much to blame as you are, for it was an entirely false step. Yet how was I to know?”
“True, my Princess!” said the man in a low, choking voice. “How were you to know that I still loved you in silence, that I was aware of the secret of your domestic unhappiness, that I—”
“Enough!” she cried, drawing herself up. “The word love surely need not be spoken between us. I know it all, alas! Yet I beg of you to remember that I am the wife of another, and a woman of honour.”
“Ah yes,” he exclaimed, his trembling hand resting on the back of the chair upon which she sat. “Honour—yes. I love you, Claire—you surely know that well. But we do not speak of it; it is a subject not to be discussed by us. Day after day, unable to speak to you, I watch you in silence. I know your bitterness in that gilded prison they call the Court, and long always to help you and rescue you from that—that man to whom you are, alas! wedded. It is all so horrible, so loathsome, that I recoil when I see him smiling upon you while at heart he hates you. For weeks, since last we spoke together, how I have lived I scarcely know—utter despair, insane hopes alternately possess me—but at last the day came, and I followed you here to speak with you, my Princess.”