Clementina

"Well, sir, why not the truth in answer to the question?"

"Because the truth's unfair to him."

"And was the untruth fair to me?"

Mr. Wogan was silent.

"I think I understand," she continued bitterly; "you thought, here's a

foolish girl, aflame for knights and monsters overthrown. She cries for

deeds, not statecraft. Well, out of your many, you would toss her one,

and call it the King's. You could afford the loss, and she, please God,

would be content with it." She spoke with an extraordinary violence in a

low, trembling voice, and she would not listen to Wogan's stammered

interruption.

"Very likely, too, the rest of your words to me was of a piece. I was a

girl, and girls are to have gallant speeches given to them like so many

lollipops. Oh, but you have hurt me beyond words. I would not have

thought I could have suffered so much pain!"

That last cry wrung Wogan's heart. She turned away from him with the

tears brimming in her eyes. It was this conjecture of hers which he had

dreaded, which at all costs he must dispel.

"Do not believe it!" he exclaimed. "Think! Should I have been at so much

pains to refrain from speech, if speech was what I had intended?"

"How should I know but what that concealment was part of the gallantry,

a necessary preface to the pretty speeches?"

"Should I have urged your rescue on the King had I believed you what you

will have it that I did,--a mere witless girl to be pampered with

follies?"

"Then you admit," she cried, "you urged the King."

"Should I have travelled over Europe to search for a wife and lit on

you? Should I have ridden to Ohlau and pestered your father till he

yielded? Should I have ridden across Europe to Strasbourg? Should I have

endangered my friends in the rush to Innspruck? No, no, no! From first

to last you were the chosen woman."

The vehemence and fire of sincerity with which he spoke had its effect

on her. She turned again towards him with a gleam of hopefulness in her

face, but midway in the turn she stopped.

"You spoke to me words which I have not forgotten," she said doubtfully.

"You said the King had need of me. I will be frank, hoping that you will

match my frankness. On that morning when we climbed down the gorge, and

ever since I cheered myself with that one thought. The King had need of

me."