"You leave this prison to rule over England
again, and over conquered France as well, and naught can prevent it."
"Unless, friend, I were wedded to a Frenchman. Then would the stern
English lords never permit that I have any finger in the government."
She came to him with conspicuous deliberation and rested her hands
upon his breast. "Friend, I am weary of these tinsel splendors. What
are this England and this France to me, who crave the real kingdom?"
Her mouth was tremulous and lax, and her gray eyes were more brilliant
than the star yonder. The man's arms were about her, and of the man's
face I cannot tell you. "King's daughter! mistress of half Europe! I
am a beggar, an outcast, as a leper among honorable persons."
But it was as though he had not spoken. "Friend, it was for this I
have outlived these garish, fevered years, it was this which made me
glad when I was a child and laughed without knowing why. That I might
to-day give up this so-great power for love of you, my all-incapable
and soiled Antoine, was, as I now know, the end to which the Eternal
Father created me.
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