Or rather--she had not cared. Was it
possible she would ever care, and perhaps at a time when it was no use
caring? A certain irritability, quite foreign to her usual composure,
fevered her blood, and it arose from one simple admission which she had
been forced to make to herself within the last few days, and this was,
that her husband was as much her kingly superior in heart and mind as
he was in rank and power. She had never till now imagined him capable
of performing a brave deed, or pursuing an independently noble course
of action. Throughout all the days of his married life he had followed
the ordinary routine of his business or pleasure with scarce a break,--
in winter to his country seat on the most southern coast of his
southern land,--in spring to the capital,--in full summer to some
fashionable 'bath' or 'cure,'--in autumn to different great houses for
the purpose of shooting other people's game by their obsequious
invitation,--and in the entire round he had never shown himself capable
of much more than a flirtation with the prettiest or the most pushing
new beauty, or a daring ride on the latest invention for travelling at
lightning speed. She had noticed a certain change in him since he had
ascended the throne, but she had attributed this to the excessive
boredom of having to attend to State affairs.
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