"There is a face, Mr. Wogan,--a passionate, beautiful face,--which might
well set a seal upon a man's heart. I do not wonder. I can well believe
that though to-day that face gladdens the streets of Rome, a lover in
Spain might see it through all the thick earth of the Pyrenees. There,
sir, I promised to acquaint you why the King lingered in Spain. I have
fulfilled that promise;" and making a present to the custodian, she
walked back through the rooms and down the steps to the street. Wogan
followed her, and pacing with much dignity they walked back to the
little house among the trees, and so came again into the garden of
blossoms.
The anger had now gone from her face, but it was replaced by a great
weariness.
"It is strange, is it not," she said with a faltering smile, "that on a
spring morning, beneath this sky, amongst these flowers, I should think
with envy of the snows of Innspruck and my prison there? But I owe you a
reparation," she added. "You said the King had need of me. For that
saying of yours I find an apt simile. Call it a stone on which you bade
me set my foot and step. I stepped, and found that your stone was
straw."
"No, madam," cried Wogan.
"I had a thought," she continued, "you knew the stone was straw when
you commended it to me as stone. But this morning I have learned my
error. I acquit you, and ask your pardon. You did not know that the King
had no need of me." And she bowed to him as though the conversation was
at an end. Wogan, however, would not let her go. He placed himself in
front of her, engrossed in his one thought, "She must marry the King."
He spoke, however, none the less with sincerity when he cried,-"Nor do I know now--no, and I shall not know."
"You have walked with me to the Caprara Palace this morning. Or did I
dream we walked?"
"What your Highness has shown me to-day I cannot gainsay. For this is
the first time that ever I heard of Mlle. de Caprara. But I am very sure
that you draw your inference amiss. You sit in judgment on the King, not
knowing him. You push aside the firm trust of us who know him as a thing
of no account. And because once, in a mood of remorse at my own
presumption, I ascribed one trivial exploit--at the best a success of
muscle and not brain--to the King which was not his, you strip him of
all merit on the instant." He saw that her face flushed. Here, at all
events, he had hit the mark, and he cried out with a ringing
confidence,-"Your stone is stone, not straw."