Clementina

Maria Vittoria received the name of her visitor with a profound

astonishment. Then she stamped her foot and said violently, "Send him

away! I hate him." But curiosity got the better of her hate. She felt a

strong desire to see the meddlesome man who had thrust himself between

her and her lover; and before her woman had got so far as the door, she

said, "Let him up to me!" She was again surprised when Wogan was

admitted, for she expected a stout and burly soldier, stupid and

confident, of the type which blunders into success through sheer

ignorance of the probabilities of defeat. Mr. Wogan, for his part, saw

the glowing original of the picture at Bologna, but armed at all points

with hostility.

"Your business," said she, curtly. Wogan no less curtly replied that he

had a wish to escort Mlle. de Caprara to Bologna. He spoke as though he

was suggesting a walk on the Campagna.

"And why should I travel to Bologna?" she asked. Wogan explained. The

explanation required delicacy, but he put it in as few words as might

be. There were slanderers at work. Her Highness the Princess Clementina

was in great distress; a word from Mlle. de Caprara would make all

clear.

"Why should I trouble because the Princess Clementina has a crumpled

rose-leaf in her bed? I will not go," said Mlle. de Caprara.

"Yet her Highness may justly ask why the King lingers in Spain." Wogan

saw a look, a smile of triumph, brighten for an instant on the angry

face.

"It is no doubt a humiliation to the Princess Clementina," said Maria

Vittoria, with a great deal of satisfaction. "But she must learn to bear

humiliation like other women."

"But she will reject the marriage," urged Wogan.

"The fool!" cried Maria Vittoria, and she laughed almost gaily. "I will

not budge an inch to persuade her to it. Let her fancy what she will and

weep over it! I hate her; therefore she is out of my thought."

Wogan was not blind to the inspiriting effect of his argument upon Maria

Vittoria. He had, however, foreseen it, and he continued

imperturbably,-"No doubt you think me something of a fool, too, to advance so unlikely

a plea. But if her Highness rejects the marriage, who suffers? Her

Highness's name is already widely praised for her endurance, her

constancy. If, after all, at the last moment she scornfully rejects that

for which she has so stoutly ventured, whose name, whose cause, will

suffer most? It will be one more misfortune, one more disaster, to add

to the crushing weight under which the King labours. There will be

ignominy; who will be dwarfed by it? There will be laughter; whom will

it souse? There will be scandal; who will be splashed by it? The

Princess or the King?"