"My reason overshadows it. You do not suppose that I take any especial

pleasure in forcing you? But you leave me no other method."

"I am a young girl, and he is an old man."

"That is immaterial. Besides, the fact has gone abroad. It is now

irrevocable."

"I promise to go out and ask the first man I see to marry me!" she

declared.

"Pray Heaven, it may be Doppelkinn!" said the duke drolly.

"Oh, do not doubt that I have the courage and the recklessness. I

would not care if he were young, but the prince is old enough to be my

father."

"You are not obliged to call him husband." The duke possessed a

sparkle to-night which was unusual in him. Perhaps he had won some of

the state moneys which he had paid out to his ministers' that day.

"Let us not waste any time," he added.

"I shall not waste any,"--ominously.

"Order your gown from Vienna, or Paris, or from wherever you will.

Don't haggle over the price; let it be a good one; I'm willing to go

deep for it."

"You loved my aunt once,"--a broken note in her voice.

"I love her still,"--not unkindly; "but I must have peace in the house.

Observe what you have so far accomplished in the matter of creating

turmoil." The duke took up a paper.

"My sins?"--contemptuously.

"Let us call them your transgressions. Listen. You have ridden a

horse as a man rides it; you have ridden bicycles in public streets;

you have stolen away to a masked ball; you ran away from school in

Paris and visited Heaven knows whom; you have bribed sentries to let

you in when you were out late; you have thrust aside the laws as if

they meant nothing; you have trifled with the state papers and caused

the body politic to break up a meeting as a consequence of the

laughter."

The girl, as she recollected this day to which he referred, laughed

long and joyously. He waited patiently till she had done, and I am not

sure that his mouth did not twist under his beard. "Foreign education

is the cause of all this," he said finally. "Those cursed French and

English schools have ruined you. And I was fool enough to send you to

them. This is the end."

"Or the beginning,"--rebelliously.

"Doppelkinn is mild and kind."

"Mild and kind! One would think that you were marrying me to a horse!

Well, I shall not enter the cathedral."

"How will you avoid it?"--calmly.

"I shall find a way; wait and see." She was determined.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024