Part 22 (2/2)

”Affection and respect!” murmured Osra with a little toss of her head.

”Oh, that I had not been born a Princess!” And yet, though she did not love him, she thought him a very n.o.ble gentleman, and trusted to his honour and sincerity in everything. Therefore, when he still persisted, and Rudolf and the Queen urged her, telling her (the King mockingly, the Queen with a touch of sadness) that she must not look to find in the world such love as romantic girls dreamt of, at last she yielded; she told her brother that she would marry Prince Ludwig; yet for a little while she would not have the news proclaimed. So Rudolf went, alone and privately, to the White Palace, and said to Ludwig:

”Cousin, you have won the fairest lady in the world. Behold, her brother says it!”

Prince Ludwig bowed low, and taking the King's hand, pressed it, thanking him for his help and approval, and expressing himself as most grateful for the boon of the Princess's favour.

”Will you not come with me and find her?” cried the King with a merry look.

”I have urgent business now,” answered Ludwig. ”Beg the Princess to forgive me. This afternoon I will crave the honour of waiting on her with my humble grat.i.tude.”

King Rudolf looked at him, a smile curling on his lips; and he said, in one of his gusts of impatience:

”By heaven! is there another man in the world who would talk about grat.i.tude, and business, and the afternoon, when Osra of Strelsau sat waiting for him?”

”I mean no discourtesy,” protested Ludwig, taking the King's arm, and glancing at him with most friendly eyes. ”Indeed, dear friend, I am rejoiced and honoured. But this business of mine will not wait.”

So the King, frowning and grumbling and laughing, went back alone and told the Princess that the happy wooer was most grateful, and would come after his business was transacted that afternoon. But Osra, having given her hand, would admit no fault in the man she had chosen, and thanked the King for the message with great dignity. Then the King came to her, and, sitting down by her, stroked her hair, saying softly:

”You have had many lovers, sister Osra, and now comes a husband!”

”Yes, now a husband,” she murmured, catching swiftly at his hand; her voice was half caught in a sudden sob.

”So goes the world--our world,” said the King, knitting his brows and seeming to fall for a moment into a sad reverie.

”I am frightened,” she whispered. ”Should I be frightened if I loved him?”

”I have been told so,” said the King, smiling again. ”But the fear has a way of being mastered then.” And he drew her to him, and gave her a hearty brother's kiss, telling her to take courage. ”You'll thaw the fellow yet,” said the King, ”though, I grant you, he is icy enough.” For the King himself had been by no means what he called an icy man.

But Osra was not satisfied, and sought to a.s.suage the pain of her heart by adorning herself most carefully for the Prince's coming, hoping to fire him to love. For she thought that if he loved she might, although since he did not she could not. And surely he did not, or all the tales of love were false! Thus she came to receive him very magnificently arrayed. There was a flush on her cheek and an uncertain, expectant, fearful look in her eyes; thus she stood before him, as he fell on his knee and kissed her hand. Then he rose and declared his thanks, and promised his devotion; but as he spoke the flush faded and the light died from her eyes; and when at last he drew near to her and offered to kiss her cheek, her eyes were dead and her face pale and cold as she suffered him to touch it. He was content to touch it but once, and seemed not to know how cold it was; and so, after more talk of his father's pleasure and his pride, he took his leave, promising to come again the next day. She ran to the window when the door was closed on him, and thence watched him mount his horse and ride away slowly, with his head bent and his eyes downcast; yet he was a n.o.ble gentleman, stately and handsome, kind and true. The tears came suddenly into her eyes and blurred her sight as she leant watching from behind the hanging curtains of the window. Though she dashed them away angrily, they came again, and ran down her pale cold cheeks, mourning the golden vision that seemed gone without fulfilment.

That evening there came a gentleman from the Prince of Glottenberg, carrying most humble excuses from his master, who (so he said) was prevented from waiting on the Princess the next day by a certain very urgent affair which took him from Strelsau, and would keep him absent from the city all day long; and the gentleman delivered to Osra a letter from the Prince, full of graceful and profound apologies, and pleading an engagement that his honour would not let him break; for nothing short of that, said he, should have kept him from her side. There followed some lover's phrases, scantily worded and frigid in an a.s.sumed pa.s.sion.

But Osra, smiling graciously, sent back a message, readily accepting all that the Prince urged in excuse. And she told what had pa.s.sed to the King, with her head high in the air and a careless haughtiness, so that even the King did not rally her, nor yet venture to comfort her, but urged her to spend the day in riding with the Queen and him; for they were setting out for Zenda, where the King was to hunt in the forest, and she could ride some part of the way with them, and return in the evening. And she, wis.h.i.+ng that she had sent first to the Prince to bid him not come, agreed to go with her brother; it was better far to go than to wait at home for a lover who would not come.

Thus the next morning they rode out, the King and Queen with their retinue, the Princess attended by one of her Guard, named Christian Hantz, who was greatly attached to her and most jealous in praise and admiration of her. This fellow had taken it on himself to be very angry with Prince Ludwig's coldness, but dared say nothing of it; yet, impelled by his anger, he had set himself to watch the Prince very closely; and thus he had, as he conceived, discovered something which brought a twinkle into his eye and a triumphant smile to his lips as he rode behind the Princess. Some fifteen miles she accompanied her brother, and then, turning with Christian, took another way back to the city. Alone she rode, her mind full of sad thoughts; while Christian, behind, still wore his malicious smile. But presently, although she had not commanded him, he quickened his pace and came up to her side, relying for excuse on the favour which she always shewed him.

”Well, Christian,” said she, ”have you something to say to me?”

For answer he pointed to a small house standing among the trees, some way from the road, and he said:

”If I were Ludwig and not Christian, yet I would be here where Christian is, and not there where Ludwig is,” and he pointed still at the house.

She faced round in anger at his daring to speak to her of the Prince, but he was a bold fellow and would not be silenced now that he had begun to speak; he knew also that she would bear much from him. So he leant over towards her, saying:

”By your bounty, madame, I have money, and he who has money can get knowledge. So I know that the Prince is there. For fifty crowns I gained a servant of his, and he told me.”

<script>