Part 48 (2/2)
”a.s.sume?” she said. Her voice had a slight tremor in it,--her eyes looked soft and suffused with something like tears. Then, with her usual stately grace, she saluted him, and pa.s.sed out.
Struck at the unwonted expression in her face, he stood for a moment amazed. Then he gave vent to a low bitter laugh.
”How strange it would be if she should love me now!” he murmured.
”But--after all these years--too late! Too late!”
That night before the King retired to rest, Professor von Glauben reported himself and his duty to his Majesty in the privacy of his own apartments. He had, he stated, accompanied Gloria back to her home in The Islands; and, he added somewhat hesitatingly, the Crown Prince had returned with her, and had there remained. He, the Professor, had left them together, being commanded by the Prince so to do.
The King received this information with perfect equanimity.
”The boy must have his way for the present,” he said. ”His pa.s.sion will soon exhaust itself. All pa.s.sion exhausts itself sooner or--later!”
”That depends very much on the depth or shallowness of its source, Sir,”
replied the Professor.
”True! But a boy!--a mere infant in experience! What can he know of the depths in the heart and soul! Now a man of my age----”
He broke off abruptly, seeing Von Glauben's eyes fixed steadfastly upon him, and the colour deepened in his cheek. Then he gave a slight laugh.
”I tell you, Von Glauben, this little love-affair--this absurd toy-marriage is not worth thinking about. Humphry leaves the country at the end of this month,--he will remain absent a year,--and at the expiration of that time we shall marry him in good earnest to a royally-born bride. Meanwhile, let us not trouble ourselves about this sentimental episode, which is so rapidly drawing to its close.”
The Professor bowed respectfully and retired. But not to sleep. He had a glowing picture before his eyes,--a picture he could not forget, of the Crown Prince and Gloria standing with arms entwined about each other under the rose-covered porch of Ronsard's cottage saying ”Good-night”
to him, while Ronsard himself, his tranquillity completely restored, and his former fears at rest, warmly shook his hand, and with a curious mingling of pride and deference thanked him for all his friends.h.i.+p--'all his goodness!'
”And no goodness at all is mine,” said the meditative Professor, ”save that of being as honest as I can to both sides! But there is some change in the situation which I do not quite understand. There is some new plan on foot I would swear! The Prince was too triumphant--Gloria too happy--Ronsard too satisfied! There is something in the wind!--but I cannot make out what it is!”
He pondered uneasily for a part of the night, reflecting that when he had returned from The Islands in the King's yacht, he had met the Prince's own private vessel on her way thither, gliding over the waves, a mere ghostly bunch of white sails in the glimmering moon. He had concluded that it was under orders to embark the Prince for home again in the morning; and yet, though this was a perfectly natural and probable surmise, he had been unable to rid himself altogether of a doubtful presentiment, to which he could give no name. By degrees, he fell into an uneasy slumber, in which he had many incompleted dreams,--one of which was that he found himself all alone on the wide ocean which stretched for thousands of miles beyond The Islands,--alone in a small boat, endeavouring to row it towards the great Southern Continent that lay afar off in the invisible distance,--where few but the most adventurous travellers ever cared to wander. And as he pulled with weak, ineffectual oars against the mighty weight of the rolling billows, he thought he heard the words of an old Irish song which he remembered having listened to, when as quite a young man he had paid his first and last visit to the misty and romantic sh.o.r.es of Britain.
”Come o'er the sea _Cushla ma chree_!-- Mine through suns.h.i.+ne, storm and snows!-- Seasons may roll, But the true soul, Burns the same wherever it goes; Let fate frown on, so we love and part not, 'T is life where thou art, 't is death where thou art not!
Then come o'er the sea, _Cushla ma chree_!
Mine wherever the wild wind blows!”
Then waking with a violent start, he wondered what set of brain-cells had been stirred to reproduce rhymes that he had, or so he deemed, long ago forgotten. And still musing, he almost mechanically went on with the wild ditty.
”Was not the sea Made for the free, Land for Courts and chains alone!-- Here we are slaves, But on the waves, Love and liberty are our own!”
”This will never do!” he exclaimed, leaping from his bed; ”I am becoming a mere driveller with advancing age!”
He went to the window and looked out. It was about six o'clock in the morning,--the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly into his room. Before him lay the sea, calm as a lake, and clear-sparkling as a diamond;--not a boat was in sight;--not a single white sail on the distant horizon. And in the freshness and stillness of the breaking day, the world looked but just newly created.
”How we fret and fume in our little span of life!” he murmured. ”A few years hence, and for us all the troubles which we make for ourselves will be ended! But the sun and the sea will s.h.i.+ne on just the same--and Love, the supremest power on earth, will still govern mankind, when thrones and kings and empires are no more!”
His thoughts were destined to bear quick fruition. The morning deepened into noon--and at that hour a sealed dispatch brought by a sailor, who gave no name and who departed as soon as he had delivered his packet, was handed to the King. It was from the Crown Prince, and ran briefly thus:--
”At your command, Sir, and by my own desire, I have left the country over which you hold your sovereign dominion. Whither I travel, and how, is my own affair. I shall return no more _till the Nation demands my service_,--whereof I shall doubtless hear should such a contingency ever arise. I leave you to deal with the situation as seems best to your good pleasure and that of the Government,--but the life G.o.d has given me can only be lived once, and to Him alone am I responsible for it. I am resolved therefore to live it to my own liking,--in honesty, faith and freedom. In accordance with this determination, Gloria, my wife, as in her sworn marriage-duty bound, goes with me.”
For one moment the King stood transfixed and astounded; a cloud of anger darkened his brows. Crumpling up the doc.u.ment in his hand, he was about to fling it from him in a fury. What! This mere boy and girl had baffled the authority of a king! Anon, his anger cooled--his countenance cleared. Smoothing the paper out he read its contents again,--then smiled.
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