Temporal Power: A Study in Supremacy Part 25

"Sir," he stammered--"With every respect for your Majesty, I would rather lose my much-to-be-appreciated post with you than betray my friends!"

The King suddenly lost patience.

"By Heaven!" he exclaimed, "Is my command to be slighted and set aside as if it were naught? Not while I am king of this country! What mystery is here that I am not to know?"

Gloria laughed outright, and the pretty ripple of mirth, so unforced and natural, diverted the monarch's irritation.

"Oh, you are angry!" she said, her lovely eyes twinkling and sparkling like diamonds:--"So! Then your Majesty is no more than a very common man who loses temper when he cannot have his own way!" She laughed again, and the King stared at her unoffended,--being spellbound, both by her regal beauty, and her complete indifference to himself. "I will speak like the prophets do in the Bible and say, 'Lo! there is no mystery, O King!' I am only poor Gloria, a sailor's wife,--and the sailor has a place on board your son the Crown Prince's yacht, and he does not want his master to know that he is married lest he lose that place! Is not that plain and clear, O King? And why should I disobey my beloved in such a simple matter?"

The King was still in something of a fume.

"There is no reason why you should disobey," he said more quietly, but still with vexation;--"But, equally, there is no reason why your husband should be dismissed from the Crown Prince's service, because he has chosen to marry. If you tell me his name, I will make all things easy for him, for you, and your future. Can you not trust me?"

With wonderful grace and quickness Gloria suddenly sprang forward, caught the King's hand, kissed it, and then threw it lightly away from her.

"No!" she said, with a pretty defiance; "I kiss the hand of the country's King--but I have my own King to serve!"

And pausing for no more words, she turned away, sprang lightly up the rocks as swiftly as a roe-deer, and disappeared. And from some hidden corner, clear and full and sweet, her voice rang out above the peaceful plashing of the waves:

"My King crown'd me!

And I and he Are one till the world shall cease to be!"

Stricken dumb and confused by the suddenness of her action, and the swiftness of her departure, the King stood for a moment inert, gazing up the rocky height with the air of one who has seen a vision of heaven withdrawn again into its native element. Some darkening doubt troubled his mind, and it was with an altogether changed and stern countenance that he confronted Von Glauben.

"Last night, Professor, you were somewhat anxious for our health and safety," he said severely; "It is our turn now to be equally anxious for yours! We are of opinion that you, like ourselves, run some risk of danger by meddling in affairs which do not concern you! Silence!"

This, as the Professor, deeply moved by his Royal master's evident displeasure, made an attempt to speak. "We will hear all you have to say to-morrow. Meanwhile--follow your fair charge!" And he pointed up in the direction whither Gloria had vanished. "Her husband"--and he emphasized the word,--"whoever he is, appears to have entrusted her safety to you;--see that you do not betray his trust, even though you have betrayed mine!"

At this remark Von Glauben was visibly overcome.

"Sir, you have never had reason to complain of any lack of loyalty in me to you and to your service," he said with an earnest dignity which became him well;--"In the matter of the poor child yonder, whose beauty would surely be a fatal snare to any man, there is much to be told,--which if told truly, will prove that I am merely the slave of circ.u.mstances which were not created by me,--and which it is possible for a faithful servant of your Majesty to regret! But a betrayer of trust I have never been, and I beseech your Majesty to believe me when I say that the acuteness of that undeserved reproach cuts me to the heart!

I yield to no man in the respect and affection I entertain for your Royal person, not even to De Launay here--who knows--who knows--"

He broke off, unable through strong emotion to proceed.

"'Who knows'--What?" enquired the King, turning his steadfast eyes on Sir Roger.

"Nothing, Sir! Absolutely nothing!" replied the equerry, opening his eyes as widely as their habitual langour would permit; "I am absolutely ignorant of everything concerning Von Glauben except that he is an honest man! That I certainly do know!"

A slight smile cleared away something of the doubt and displeasure on the King's face. Approaching the disconsolate Professor, he laid one hand on his shoulder and looked him steadily in the eyes.

"By my faith, Von Glauben, if I thought positively that you could play me false in any matter, I would never believe a man again! Come! Forgive my hasty speech, and do not look so downcast! Honest I have always known you to be,--and that you will prove your honesty, I do not doubt!

But--there is something in this affair which awakens grave suspicion in my mind. For to-day I press no questions--but to-morrow I must know all! You understand? _All_! Say this to the girl, Gloria,--say it to her husband also--as, of course, you know who her husband is. If he serves on Prince Humphry's yacht, that is enough to say that Humphry himself has probably seen her. Under all the circ.u.mstances, I confess, my dear Von Glauben, that your presence here is a riddle which needs explanation!"

"It shall be explained, Sir--" murmured the Professor.

"Naturally! It must, of course be explained. But I hope you give me credit for not being altogether a fool; and I have an idea that my son's frequent mysterious visits to The Islands have something to do with this fair Gloria of Glorias!" Von Glauben started involuntarily. "You perhaps think it too? Or know it? Well, if it is so, I can hardly blame him overmuch,--though I am sorry he should have selected a poor sailor's wife as a subject for his secret amours! I should have thought him possessed of more honour. However--to-morrow I shall look to you for a full account of the matter. For the present, I excuse your attendance, and permit you to remain with her whom you call 'princess'!"

He stepped back, and, taking De Launay's arm, turned round at once, and walked away back to Ronsard's house by the path he had followed with such eagerness and care.

Von Glauben watched the two tall figures disappear, and then with a troubled look, began to climb slowly up the rocks in the direction where Gloria had gone. His reflections were not altogether as philosophical as usual, because as he said to himself--"One can never tell how a woman is going to meet misfortune! Sometimes she takes it well; and then the men who have ruthlessly destroyed her happiness go on their way rejoicing; but more often she takes it ill, and there is the devil to pay!

Yet--Gloria is not like any ordinary woman--she is a carefully selected specimen of her s.e.x, which a kindly Nature has produced as an example of what women were intended to be when they were first created. I wonder where she has hidden herself?"

Arriving at the summit of the ascent, he peered down towards the sea.

Slopes of rank gra.s.s and sea-daisies tufted the rocks on this side, divided by certain deep hollows which the action of the waves had honeycombed here and there; and below the gra.s.s was the sh.o.r.e, powdered thickly with sand, of a fine, light, and sparkling colour, like gold dust. Here in the full light of the sinking sun lay Gloria, her head pillowed against a rough stone, on the top of which a tall cl.u.s.ter of daisies, sometimes called moon-flowers, waved like white plumes.

"Gloria!" called Von Glauben.

She looked up, smiling.

"Has Majesty gone?" she asked.

"Gone for the present," replied the Professor, beginning to put one foot cautiously before the other down a roughly hewn stairway in the otherwise almost inaccessible cliff. "But, like the sun which is setting to-night, he will rise again to-morrow!"

"Shall I come and help you down?" enquired the girl, turning on her elbow as she lay, and lifting her lovely face, radiant as a flower, towards him.

"Whether down or up, you shall never help me, my princess!" he replied.

"When I can neither climb nor fall without the a.s.sistance of a woman's hand, I shall take a pistol and tell it to whisper in my ear--'Good-bye, Heinrich Von Glauben! You are all up--finish--gone!'"

Here, with a somewhat elephantine jump, he alighted beside her and threw himself on the warm sand with a deep sigh of mingled exhaustion and relief.

"You would be very wicked to put a pistol to your ear," said Gloria severely;--"It is only a coward who shoots himself!"

"Ach so! And it is a brave man who shoots others! That is curious, is it not, princess? It is a little bit of man's morality; but we have no time to discuss it now. We have something more serious to consider,--your husband!"

She looked at him wonderingly.

"My husband? Do you really think he will be very angry that the King saw me?"

The Professor appeared to be considering the question; but in reality he was studying the exquisite delicacy of the face turned so wistfully upon him, and the lovely lines of the slim throat and rounded chin--"So beautiful a creature"--he was saying within himself--"And must she also suffer pain and disillusion like all the rest of her unfortunate s.e.x!"

Aloud he replied.

"My princess, it is not for me to say he will be 'angry,'--for how could he be angry with the one he loves to such adoration! He will be sorry and troubled--it will put him into a great difficulty! Ach!--a whole nest of difficulties!"

"Why?" And Gloria's eyes filled with sudden tears. "I would not grieve him for the world! I cannot understand why it should matter at all, even if the King does find out that he is married. Are the rules so strict for all the men who serve on board the Royal vessels?"

Von Glauben bit his lips to hide an involuntary smile. But he answered her with quite a martinet air.

"Yes, they are strict--very strict! Particularly so in the case of your husband. You see, my child--you do not perhaps quite understand--but he is a sort of superior officer on board; and in close personal attendance on the Crown Prince."

"He did not tell me that!" said the girl a little anxiously; "Yet surely it would not matter if he loses one place; can he not easily get another?"

Von Glauben was looking at her with a grave, almost melancholy intentness.

"Listen, my princess,--listen to your poor old friend, who means you so much good, and no harm at all! Your husband--and I too, for that matter,--wished much to prevent the King from seeing you--for--for many reasons. When I heard he was coming to The Islands, I resolved to arrive here before him, and so I did. I said nothing to Ronsard, not even to warn him of the King's impending visit. I took you just quietly, as I have often done, for a walk, with a book to read and to explain to you, because you tell me you want to study; though in my opinion you know quite enough--for a woman. I gave you a letter from your husband, and you know he asked you in that letter to avoid all possibility of meeting with the King. Good! Well, now, what happens? You sing--and lo! his Majesty, like a fish on a hook, is drawn up open-mouthed to your feet!

Now, who is to blame? You or I?"

A little perplexed line appeared on the girl's fair brows. "I am, I suppose!" she said somewhat plaintively,--"But yet, even now, I do not understand. What is the King? He is nothing! He does nothing for anybody! People make pet.i.tions to him, and he never answers them--they try to point out errors and abuses, and he takes no trouble to remedy them--he is no better than a wooden idol! He is not a real man, though he looks like one."