His own eyes grew melancholy, as he studied
this vigorous incarnation of ardent love and passionate resolve; and a
slight sigh escaped him unconsciously.
"You forget!" he said slowly, "you have, up to the present deceived the
girl. She does not know who you are. When she hears that you have
played a part,--that you are no sailor in the service of the Crown
Prince, as you have apparently represented yourself to be, but the
Crown Prince himself, what will she say to you? Perhaps she will hate
you for the deception, as much as she now loves you!"
A shadow darkened the young Prince's open countenance, but it soon
passed away.
"She will never hate me!" he said,--"For when I do tell her the truth,
it will be when I have resigned all the ridiculous pomp and
circumstance of my position for her sake----"
"Perhaps she will not let you resign it!" said the King; "She may be as
unselfish as she is beautiful!"
There was a slight, very slight note of derision in his voice, and the
Prince caught it up at once.
"You wrong yourself, Sir, more than you wrong my wife by any lurking
misjudgment of her," he said, with singularly masterful and expressive
dignity. "As her husband, and the guardian of her honour, I also claim
her obedience. What I desire is her law!"
The King laughed a little forcedly.
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