Part 67 (1/2)
”Do they know all?”
”Yes! The King, my father, has announced everything concerning our marriage, not only to the Government, but by special 'manifesto' to the People. I did not think he would be so brave!”
”Or so true!” said Gloria, her eyes darkening and deepening with the intensity of her thought. ”Let me read this strange news, Humphry!”
He gave her the papers,--and a few tears sparkled on her lashes like diamonds and fell, as with a beating heart she read of the complete triumph of the King over the Socialist and Revolutionary party,--of his march with the mult.i.tude to the Government House,--of his bold denunciation of Carl Perousse, ending in the utter overthrow of a fraudulent Ministry,--and of his determination to renounce for five years, one half his royal revenues in order to personally a.s.sist the deficit in the National Exchequer.
”He is, in very truth a King!” she said, looking up with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes,--”Surely the n.o.blest in the world!”
Prince Humphry's face expressed wonderment as well as admiration.
”I have been utterly mistaken in him,”--he confessed,--”Or else, something has greatly changed his ideas. I should never have deemed him capable of running so much risk of his position, or of showing so much heroism, candour and self-sacrifice. All my life I have been accustomed to see him more or less indifferent to everything but his own pleasure, and more or less careless of the griefs of others; but now it seems as if he had kept himself back on purpose, only to declare his true character more openly and boldly in the end!”
Gloria read on, with eagerness and interest, till she came to the King's 'manifesto' regarding his son's marriage with 'a daughter of the People.' She pointed to this expression with the tapering, rosy point of her delicate little finger.
”That is me!” she said; ”I _am_ a daughter of the People! I am proud of the name!”
”You are my wife!” said the Prince; ”And you are Crown Princess of the realm!”
She looked meditative.
”I am not sure I like that t.i.tle so well!” she said surveying him archly under the shadow of her long lashes; ”Indeed--if _you_ were not Crown Prince,--I should not like it at all!”
Prince Humphry smiled, and tenderly touched the scarlet pa.s.sion-flowers in her hair.
”But as I am Crown Prince, you will try to put up with it, my Gloria!”
and he kissed her again. ”We must return home, Sweetheart!--and as speedily as possible,--though I am sorry our restful honey-time is over!”
Gloria looked wistfully around her,--over the long smooth undulating lawns, the thickets of myrtle and orange, the lovely deep groves of trees, and away to the peaks of the distant dark blue hills, over which a great golden moon was slowly rising.
”I am sorry too!” she said; ”I could live always like this, in peace with you, far, far away from all the world! Hark!”
She held up her hand to invite attention, as the delicious warble of a nightingale, or 'bul-bul' broke the heated silence into liquid melody.
Her lover-husband took that little uplifted hand, and drawing it in his own, kissed it fondly,--and so for a moment they were very quiet, while the little brown bird of music poured from its palpitating throat a cadence of heart-moving song. Gradually, the golden splendour of the Indian moonlight widened through the trees, enveloping them in its clear luminous radiance; and the two beautiful human creatures, gazing into each other's eyes with all the unspeakable rapture of a perfect love, touched that wondrous height of pure mutual pa.s.sion which makes things temporal seem very far off, and things eternal very near.
”If life could always be like this,” murmured Gloria; ”We should surely understand G.o.d better! We should feel that He truly loved us, and wished us to love each other! Ah, if only all the world were as happy as I am!”
”You will help to make a great part of it so, my beloved!” said the Prince; ”You will bring with you into our kingdom, comfort for the sorrowful, aid to the poor, sympathy for the lonely, thought for all!
You will forget nothing that calls for your remembrance, my Sweet! And one nation at least, will know what it is to have a true woman's love to light up the darkness of a Throne!”
That night a cable message was sent by the Prince to his father, stating his intention to return home immediately. The Oriental potentate who had generously placed his palace at the Royal lovers' disposal, and had religiously preserved the secret of their ident.i.ty and whereabouts, being himself much fascinated and interested by the romance of their story, now commanded festivals and illuminations for their entertainment before their departure, and within a fortnight of the despatch of his message, the Prince's yacht had left the mystic sh.o.r.es of the East, and started on its homeward journey.
The news that the Crown Prince was returning with his bride, set all the country in a flutter of excitement, and the General Election being concluded, and the meeting of the new Government being deferred until after the Heir-Apparent's return, the people of every city and town and province set themselves busily to work to prepare suitable festivities for the homecoming of the Royal pair. At The Islands especially the spirit of enthusiasm was complete--all sorts of ideas for fetes and sports, and bonfires and illuminations, exercised the minds of the simple fisher-folk, who were wild with joy at the singular destiny that had befallen their 'waif of the sea' as they were wont to call the beautiful girl who had grown up among them,--and the aged Rene Ronsard was made the centre of their interest and attention,--even of their adulation. But Ronsard had grown very listless of late. His age began to tell heavily upon him, and the news that Gloria was returning in all triumph as Crown Princess, moved him but little.
”She would have been happier as a simple sailor's wife!” he averred, when Professor von Glauben, who visited him constantly, sought to rouse him from the apathy into which he appeared to have sunk. ”The greater the position, the heavier the burden!--the more outwardly brilliant the appearance of life, the deeper its secret bitterness!”