"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!"
"But Gloria has Love with her, my friend!" urged the Professor; "And Love makes the bitterest things sweet!"
Ronsard"s aged eyes sparkled faintly.
"Ay, Love!" he echoed; "A dream--a delusion--and a snare! Unless it be a love strong enough to drag one down to death!--and then it is the strongest power in the world! It is a terror and a martyrdom,--and in nothing shall its desire be thwarted! If It calls--even kings obey!"
CHAPTER x.x.xII
BETWEEN TWO Pa.s.sIONS
Slowly, and with hesitating steps, Sergius Thord mounted the long flight of stairs leading to the quiet attic which Lotys called "home." Here she lived; here she had chosen to live ever since Thord had made her, as he said, the "Soul of the Revolutionary Ideal." Here, since the King had conquered the Revolutionary Ideal altogether, and had made it a Loyalist centre, did she dwell still, though she had now some thoughts of yielding to the child Pequita"s earnest pleading, and taking up her abode with her and her father, in a pretty little house in the suburbs which, since Pequita"s success as _premiere danseuse_ at the Opera, Sholto had been able to afford, and to look upon as something like a comfortable dwelling-place. For with the election of Thord to the dignity of a Deputy, had, of course, come the necessity of resigning his old quarters where his "Revolutionary" meetings had been held,--and he now resided in a more "respectable" quarter of the city, in such sober, yet distinctive fashion as became one who was a friend of the King"s, and who was likely to be a Minister some day, when he had further proved his political mettle. So that Sholto had no longer any need to try and eke out a scanty subsistence by letting rooms to revolutionists and "suspects" generally,--and Thord himself had helped him to make a change for the better, as had also the King.
But Lotys had not as yet moved. She had lived so long among the desperately poor, who were accustomed to go to her for sympathy and aid, that she could not contemplate leaving so many sick and suffering and sorrowful ones alone to fight their bitter battle. So had she said, at least, to Thord, when he had endeavoured to persuade her to establish herself in greater comfort, and in a part of the city which had a "better-cla.s.s" reputation. She had listened to his suggestions with a somewhat melancholy smile.
"Once,--and not so very long ago,--for you there was no such thing as the "better-cla.s.s," Sergius!" she said; "You were wont to declare that rich and poor alike were all one family in the sight of G.o.d!"
"I have not altered my opinion," said Thord, a slight flush colouring his cheek; "But--you are a woman--and as a woman should have every care and tenderness."
"So should my still poorer sisters," she replied; "And it is for those who have least comfort, that comfort should be provided. I am perfectly well and happy where I am!"
Remembering her fixed ideas on this point, there was an uneasy sense of trouble in Thord"s mind as he ventured again on what he feared would be a fruitless errand.
"If I could command her!" he thought, chafing inwardly at his own impotence to persuade or lead this woman, whose character and will were so much more self-contained and strong than his own. "If I could only exercise some authority over her! But I cannot. What small debt of grat.i.tude she owed me as a child, has long been cleared by her constant work and the a.s.sistance she has given to me,--and unless she will consent to be my wife, I know I shall lose her altogether. For she will never submit to live on money that she has not earned."
Arrived at the summit of the staircase he had been climbing, he knocked at the first door which faced him on the uppermost landing.
"Come in!" said the low, sweet voice that had thrilled and comforted so many human souls; and entering as he was bidden, he saw Lotys seated in a low chair near the window, rocking a tiny infant, so waxen-like and meagre, that it looked more like a corpse than a living child.
"The mother died last night," she said gently, in response to his look of interrogation; "She had been struggling against want and sickness for a long time. G.o.d was merciful in taking her at last! The father has to go out all day in search of work,--often a vain search; so I do what I can for this poor little one!"
And she bent over the forlorn waif of humanity, kissing its pale small face, and pressing it soothingly to her warm, full breast. She looked quite beautiful in that Madonna-like att.i.tude of protection and love,--her gold hair drooping against the slim whiteness of her throat,--her deep blue eyes full of that tenderness for the defenceless and weak, which is the loveliest of all womanly expressions.
Sergius Thord drew a chair opposite to her, and sat down.
"You are always doing good, Lotys!" he said, with a slight tremor in his voice; "There is no day in your life without its record of help to the helpless!"
She shook her head deprecatingly, and went on caressing and soothing the tiny babe in silence.
After a pause, he spoke again.
"I have come to you, Lotys, to ask you many things!"
She looked up with a little smile.
"Do you need advice, Sergius? Nay, surely not!--you have pa.s.sed beyond it--you are a great man!"
He moved impatiently.