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As they entered, she looked up and smiled, then rose, her hand still resting on the open book. "At last you have come again, dear Professor!" she said; "I began to think you had grown weary in well-doing!" Von Glauben stared at her, stricken speechless for a moment. What mysterious change had passed over the girl, investing her with such an air of regal authority? It was impossible to say.
They are really quite as interesting as ourselves!" "Look here, Von Glauben, I want you to be serious " "My friend, I am always serious," declared the Professor "Even when I laugh, I laugh seriously. My laughter is as real as myself." "What would you think," pursued De Launay "of a king who freely expressed his own opinions?"
I think, Roger, his Majesty wishes this entire affair treated as a pleasantry, by us at any rate, however seriously he may regard it himself." De Launay was silent for a minute or two, then he said abruptly: "The Premier is summoned to a private audience of the King at noon." "Ah!" And Von Glauben drew a cluster of the overhanging philadelphus flowers down to his nose and smelt them approvingly.
"I will now destroy a world" continued Von Glauben, "Kings, emperors, popes, councillors and common folk, can all perish incontinently, as being myself for the present the free agent of the Deity concerned in the matter, I have something else to do than to look after them," and he took up the glass vessel containing the animalculae he had been watching, and cast it with its contents into a small stove burning dimly at one end of the apartment, "Gone are their ambitions and confabulations for ever!
"They are not loved, it must be confessed," returned Von Glauben, taking off his spectacles again; "But that is quite their own fault. They seldom do anything to deserve the respect, much less the affection of their subjects. But this king this man you have just seen certainly deserves both." "Why, what has he done?" asked Gloria wonderingly.
The girl must remain in her present ignorance as to the position of the man she has really married. The sailor she supposes him to be will accompany the Prince on his yacht, and it must be arranged that he never returns! She is young, and will easily be consoled!" Von Glauben was silent. "You will not betray the Prince's identity with her lover," went on the King, "and no one else knows it.
Gloria's eyes darkened a moment with thought, then flashed with laughter. "No," she said frankly "He is more kingly than I thought a king could be. But he should not lose temper. That spoils all dignity!" Von Glauben smiled. "Kings are but mortal," he said, "and never to lose temper would be impossible to any man."
May you for ever be confounded and mistaken!" exclaimed Von Glauben, "I left the King in his own grounds but an hour before I myself started to witness this accursed sea-funeral!" "I say it was the King!" repeated the man emphatically. "I would swear it was the King! And the vessel going out to meet the storm tonight, holds the living, as well as the dead!"
You have a strong flavour of romance in your Teutonic composition, Von Glauben, and I can quite sympathise with your admiration for the 'Glory-of-the-Sea' as you call her. From a man's point of view, I admire her myself. But I know nothing of her moral or mental qualities; though from her flat refusal to give me her husband's name yesterday, I judge her as wilful, but most pretty women are that.
"Let me advise you for the future not to allude to that disagreeable incident!" said Von Glauben persuasively: "Exercise discretion, as I do! Observe that I do not ask you what king you killed; I am as careful on that matter as I am concerning the reasons for which I myself left my native Fatherland! I make it a rule never to converse on painful subjects.
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