He was gazing out of the window at the troops in the Platz when the door closed.
Madame heard the rustle of the curtain and looked up.She sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing.
"You?" she cried."You? You have dared to hide that you might witness my weakness and my tears? You....""Madame!"
"Go! I hate you!"
"Ah, Madame, we always hate those whom we have wronged.Do not forget that I love you, with a love that passes convention.""Monsieur, I am yet a princess.Did you not hear me bid you go?""Why?" in a voice singularly free from agitation."Because I am the only man who has served you unselfishly? Is that the reason, Madame? You have laughed at me.I love you.You have broken me.
I love you.I can never look an honest man in the face again.Ilove you.Though the shade of my father should rise to accuse me, still would I say that I love you.Madame, will you find another love like mine, the first love of a man who will know no second? Forgive me if I rejoice in your despair, for your despair is my hope.As a queen you would be too far away; but in your misfortune you come so near! Madame, I shall follow you wherever you go to tell you that I love you.You will never be able to shut your ears to my voice; far or near, you will always hear me saying that I love you.Ambition soars but a little way;love has no fetters.Madame, your lips were given to me.Can you forget that?""Monsieur, what do you wish?" subdued by the fervor of his tones.
"You! nothing in the world but you."
"Princesses such as I am do not wed for love.What! you take advantage of my misfortune, the shattering of my dreams, to force your love upon me?""Madame," the pride of his race lighting his eyes, "confess to me that you did not win my love to play with it.If my heart was necessary to your happiness, which lay in these shattered dreams, tell me, and I will go.My love is so great that it does not lack generosity."For reply she sorted the papers and extended a blood-stained packet toward him."Here, Monsieur, are your consols." But the moment his hand touched them, she made as though to take them back.On the top of the packet was the letter she had written to him, and on which he had written his scornful reply to her.She paled as she saw him unfold it.
"So, Madame, my love was a pastime?" He came close to her, and his look was like an invisible hand bearing down on her."Madame, I will go.""No, no!" she cried, yielding to the impulse which suddenly laid hold of her."Not you! You shall not misjudge me.No, not you!
Those consols were given to me by the woman of your guide, Kopf, who found them no one knows how.They were given to me this morning.That letter.....I did not intend that you should see it.No, Monsieur; you shall not misjudge the woman, however you judge the princess.Forgive me, it was not the woman who sought your love; it was the princess who had need of it.
"I thought it would be but a passing fancy.I did not dream of this end.To-morrow I shall be laughed at, and I cannot defend myself as a man can.I must submit; I must smile and cover my chagrin.O, Monsieur, do not speak to me of love; there is nothing in my heart but rage and bitterness.To stoop as I have stooped, and in vain! I am defeated; I must remain passive; like a whipped child I am driven away.Talk not of love to me.I am without illusion." She fell to weeping, and to him she was lovelier in her tears than ever in her smiles.For would she have shown this weakness to any but himself, and was it not a sign that he was not wholly indifferent to her?
"Madame, what is it?" he cried, on his knees before her."What is it? Do you wish a crown? Find me a kingdom, and I will buy it for you.Be mine, and woe to those who dare to laugh! Ah, could I but convince you that love is above crowns and kingdoms, the only glimpse we have on earth of Paradise.There is no boundary to the dreams; no horizons; a vast, beautiful wilderness, and you and I together.There are no storms, no clouds.Ambition, the god of schemes, finds no entrance.Ah, how I love you! Your face is ever before me, waking or sleeping.All thoughts are merged into one, and that is of you.Self has dropped out of my existence.Forget that you are a princess; remember only that you are a woman, and that I love you."Love has the key to eloquence.Madame forgot her vanished dreams;the bitterness in her heart subsided.That mysterious, indefinable thrill, which every woman experiences when a boundless love is laid at her feet, passed through her, leaving her sensible to a delicious languor.This man was strong in himself, yet weak before her, and from his weakness she gained a visible strength.Convention was nothing to him; that she was of royal blood was still less.What other man would have dared her wrath as he had done?
Nobility, she thought, was based on the observance of certain laws.Around the central star were lesser stars, from which the central star drew its radiance.Whenever one of these stars deviates from its orbit, the glory of the central star is diminished.To accept the love of the Englishman would be a blow to the pride of Austria.She smiled.
"Monsieur," she said, in a hesitating voice, "Monsieur, I am indeed a woman.You ask me if I can forget that I offered you my lips? No.Nor do I wish to.Why did I permit you to kiss me? Ido not know.I could not analyze the impulse if I tried.
Monsieur, I am a woman who demands much from those who serve her.
I am capricious; my moods vary; I am unfamiliar with sentiment;I hate oftener than I love.Listen.There is a canker in my heart, made there by vanity.When it heals--well--mayhap you will find the woman you desire.Mind you, I make no promises.
Follow me, if you will, but have patience; love me if you must, but in silence;" and with a gesture which was not without a certain fondness, she laid her hand upon his head.
