Part 45 (2/2)
Her lovely lips smiled,--her eyes laughed,--she looked the very incarnation of Beauty triumphant. Von Glauben's brain whirled,--he felt bewitched and dazzled.
”I?--to teach you anything? No, my princess!--and please think how loyally I have called you 'Princess' from the beginning!--I have always told you that you have a spiritual knowledge far surpa.s.sing all material wisdom. Conventions and ceremonials are not for you,--you will make fas.h.i.+on, not follow it! I am not troubled, save for your sake, dear child!--for you know nothing of the world, and the ways of the Court may at first offend you--”
”The ways of h.e.l.l must have seemed dark to Proserpine,” said Ronsard in his harsh, strong voice; ”But Love gave her light!”
”A very just reminder!” said Von Glauben, well pleased;--”Consider Gloria to be the new Proserpine to-day! And now she must forgive me for playing the part of a tyrannical friend, and urging her to hasten her preparations.”
Gloria bent down and kissed Ronsard gently.
”Trust me, little father!” she whispered; ”You have not taught me great lessons of truth in vain!”
Aloud she said.
”The King and Queen wish to see me and speak with me,--and I know the reason why! They desire to fully explain to me all that my husband has already told me,--which is that according to the rules made for monarchs, our marriage is inadmissible. Well!--I have my answer ready; and you, Professor, shall hear me give it! Wait but a few moments and I will come with you.”
She left the room. The two men looked at each other in silence. At last Von Glauben said:--
”Ronsard, I think you will soon reap the reward of your 'life-philosophy' system! You have fed that girl from her childhood on strong intellectual food, and trained the mental muscles rather than the physical ones. Upon my word, I believe you will see a good result!”
Ronsard, who had grown much calmer and quieter during the last few minutes, raised himself a little from the chair into which he had sunk with an air of fatigue, and looked dreamily towards the open lattice window, where the roses hung in a curtain of crimson blossom.
”If it be so, I shall praise G.o.d!” he said; ”But the years have come and gone with me so peacefully since I made my home on these quiet sh.o.r.es, that the exercise of what I have presumed to call 'philosophy' has had no chance. Philosophy! It is well to preach it,--but when the blow of misfortune falls, who can practise it?”
”You can,” replied the Professor;--”I can! Gloria can! I think we all three have clear brains. There is a tendency in the present age to overlook and neglect the greatest power in the whole human composition,--the mental and psychical part of it. Now, in the present curious drama of events, we have a chance given to exercise it; and it will be our own faults if we do not make our wills rule our destinies!”
”But the position is intolerable--impossible!” said Ronsard, rising and pacing the room with a fresh touch of agitation. ”Nothing can do away with the fact that we--my child and I--have been cruelly deceived!
And now there can be only one of two contingencies; Gloria must be acknowledged as the Prince's wife,--in which case he will be forced to resign all claim to the Throne;--or he must marry again, which makes her no wife at all. That is a disgrace which her pride would never submit to, nor mine;--for did I not kill a king?”
”Let me advise you for the future not to allude to that disagreeable incident!” said Von Glauben persuasively: ”Exercise discretion,--as I do! Observe that I do not ask you what king you killed;--I am as careful on that matter as I am concerning the reasons for which I myself left my native Fatherland! I make it a rule never to converse on painful subjects. You tell me you have tried to atone; then believe that the atonement is made, and that Gloria is the sign of its acceptance, and--happy augury!--here she comes.”
They both instinctively turned to confront the girl as she entered. She had changed her ordinary white homespun gown for another of the same kind, equally simple, but fresh and unworn; her glorious bronze-chestnut hair was unbound to its full rippling length, and was held back by a band or fillet of curiously carved white coral, which surmounted the rich tresses somewhat in the fas.h.i.+on of a small crown, and she carried, thrown over one arm, the only kind of cloak she ever wore,--a burnous-like wrap of the same white homespun as her dress, with a hood, which, as the Professor slowly took out his gla.s.ses and fixed them on his nose out of mere mechanical habit, to look at her more closely, she drew over her head and shoulders, the soft folds about her exquisite face completing a cla.s.sic picture of such radiant beauty as is seldom seen nowadays among the increasingly imperfect and repulsive specimens of female humanity which 'progress' combined with sensuality, produce for the 'advancement' of the race.
”I have no Court dress,” she said smiling; ”And if I had I should not wear it! The King and Queen shall see me as my husband sees me,--what pleases him, must suffice to please them! I am quite ready!”
Von Glauben removed the spectacles he had needlessly put on. They were dim with a moisture which he furtively polished off, blinking his eyes meanwhile as if the light hurt him. He was profoundly moved--thrilled to the very core of his soul by the simplicity, frankness and courage of this girl whose education was chiefly out of wild Nature's lesson-book, and who knew nothing of the artificial world of fas.h.i.+on.
”And I, my princess, am at your service!” he said; ”Ronsard, it is but a few hours that we shall be absent. To-night with the rising of the moon we shall return, and I doubt not with the Prince himself as chief escort! Keep a good heart and have faith! All will be well!”
”All _shall_ be well if Love can make it so!” said Ronsard;--”Gloria--my child--!” He held out his wrinkled hands pathetically, unable to say more. She sank on her knees before him, and tenderly drawing down those hands upon her head, pressed them closely there.
”Your blessing, dearest!” she said; ”Not in speech--but in thought!”
There was a moment's sacred silence;--then Gloria rose, and throwing her arms round the old man, the faithful protector of her infancy and girlhood, kissed him tenderly. After that, she seemed to throw all seriousness to the winds, and running out under the roses of the porch made two or three light dancing steps across the lawn.
”Come!” she cried, her eyes sparkling, her face radiant with the gaiety of her inward spirit; ”Come, Professor! This is not what we call a poet's day of dreams,--it is a Royal day of nonsense! Come!” and here she drew herself up with a stately air--”WE are prepared to confront the King!”
The Professor caught the infection of her mirth, and quickly followed her; and within the next half-hour Rene Ronsard, climbing slowly to the summit of one of the nearest rocks on the sh.o.r.e adjacent to his dwelling, shaded his eyes from the dazzling sunlight on the sea, and strained them to watch the magnificent Royal yacht steaming swiftly over the tranquil blue water, with one slight figure clad in white leaning against the mast, a figure that waved its hand fondly towards The Islands, and of whom it might have been said:
”Her gaze was glad past love's own singing of, And her face lovely past desire of love!”
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