The Princess's mother made an effort.
"Clementina, you must receive him. I will have it so. I am your mother.
I will be your mother," she said in a tremulous tone, as though the mere
utterance of the command frightened her by its audacity.
Clementina was softened on the instant. She ran across to her mother's
chair, and kneeling by it said with a laugh, "So you shall. I would not
barter mothers with any girl in Christendom. But you understand. I am
pledged in honour to my King. I will receive the Prince, but indeed I
would he had not come," and rising again she kissed her mother on the
forehead.
She received the Prince of Baden alone. He was a stout man of much
ceremony and took some while to elaborate a compliment upon Clementina's
altered looks. Before, he had always seen her armed and helmeted with
dignity; now she had much ado to keep her lips from twitching into a
smile, and the smile in her eyes she could not hide at all. The Prince
took the change to himself. His persistent wooing had not been after all
in vain. He was not, however, the man to make the least of his
sufferings in the pursuit which seemed to end so suitably to-day.
"Madam," he said with his grandest air, "I think to have given you some
proof of my devotion. Even on this inclement day I come to pay my duty
though the streets are deep in snow."
"Oh, sir," exclaimed Clementina, "then your feet are wet. Never run such
risks for me. I would have no man weep on my account though it were only
from a cold in the head."
The Prince glanced at Clementina suspiciously. Was this devotion? He
preferred to think so.
"Madam, have no fears," said he, tenderly, wishing to set the anxious
creature at her ease. "I drove here in my carriage."
"But from the carriage to the door you walked?"
"No, madam, I was carried."
Clementina's lips twitched again.
"I would have given much to have seen you carried," she said demurely.
"I suppose you would not repeat the--No, it would be to ask too much.
Besides, from my windows here in the side of the house I could not see."
And she sighed deeply.
The fatuous gentleman took comfort from the sigh.
"Madam, you have but to say the word and your windows shall look
whichever way you will."
Clementina, however, did not say the word. She merely sighed again. The
Prince thought it a convenient moment to assert his position.