The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-12-02
CHAPTER Y.

"a
ed below, sprang into the carriage
which had brought him from the palace
and returned there at once. He chose
to dine alone in his own suite of cham
bers. and at dinner drank little more
wine than usual. Afterward he went
into his mothers apartments, where she
was receiving a very select assemblage
that chiefly consisted of the highest
Saltravian nobility. Having saluted his
mother he moved about the rooms for
some time, and at length paused quite a
while before Blanca dEste, who was
looking exceedingly handsome in a
gown of blue satin embroidered with
silver.
THE princess almost gave up expect
ing you," she said, looking at him very
earnestly with her sweet, infantile,
china-blue eyes.
"Am so late?" said Clarimond.
"Not that, monsieur; but we feared
or, should say, her highness feared
lest other attractions would detain you. "
He saw the sly innuendo, but chose to
pretend that it escaped him.
Really, 1 do not understand" he
said "Other attractions"
Blanca flushed at her own boldness
And yet the courage of desperation pos
sessed her soul. That soul was no longer
in bondage to the church. A new re-
ligion had enthralled it. Women have
rarely found it difficult to love kings,
and Clarimond, if he had no royalty for
background, would have appealed to
almost any woman's heart. AS it was
he fired both the heart and imagination
of Blanca d. Este. In spirit she was at
his feet with that sort of genufection
which is tinctured by pang of intoxi-
Gated recklessness. And yet her mien
(ice over fiame) was calm enough as she
cow replied:
Il mean the handsome young Amer
lean girl, monsieur, whom you honored
so greatly this afternoon
You saw me?'' Clarimond rather
lightly said. "And you think honored
her? It seemed to me as if honors were
easy, as one says in English whist!''
''0h, monsieur" Blanca cried; and
while she looked into his face, which of
.late had grown to her more than kingly
had grown to her, indeed, almost like
the face of a god-she ardently persist
ed: For you to speak like that For
you to even hint that a mere nobody
should not be honored, and very greatly
honored, by the least smile from your
He watched her for a moment as
though she half irritated, half shocked
him. 81 am man." he then said, with
great simplicity and gentleness. ''How
can be more, and why should not dis
like hearing it suggested that am
more?"
you are king" replied Blanca.
''You are a king with long ancestry of
kings behind you!"
He laughed softly and shrugged his
shoulders, glancing about him at the
walls of the festal room in which they
stood, with its panelings of white and
gold, with its huge clusters of wax
lights for side chandeliers beaming
above other huge clusters of prisms
like stalactites, and with its ceilings
where cupids drove in chariots drawn
by butterflies through gorges and over
causeways of rosy and azure cloud.
sit means very little to be a king,
nowadays" he said. 'At least it means
very little to me-"
81 am so sorry" she answered. 81
am so intensely sorry!"
''You have been talking with my
mother" he replied. 'It is easy to see
that you are full of her views and pre-
judices."
mo, they are mine,'' she averred.
''Call them what you please. IL hate
so to address you as monsieur but this
is your command, and what can one do
but obey it? You are royal, and maj
-esty' is your rightful form of address
And then the way in which you despise
and hout all ceremonial Oh, this is
harder to bear still! You should have
entered here, just as you should walk
abroad, with your equerries, your gen.
tlemen in waiting. All, it is terrible,
terrible! 1t saddens me, it wounds me,
to see you cast aside the rights and dig
mites of your great birth. | do not
wonder that your mother sorrows- 1t
is not mere pride that makes her feel as
she does. 1t is sense-Oh, pardon me,
for speak from the very inmost depths
of my heart!-a sense OF your having
been appointed by Heaven itself to rule
over your people, and of your treating
this holy mission as though it concerned
some slight and paltry officer
As Blanca d. Este ended, the king
took her hand IN his own for moment.
He felt that it was trembling and he
saw that there were tears in her bright,
wide, childish eyes.
''You are very sincere he said, with
smile that was not exempt from GER
tain delicate melancholy. "a great
many people, since history began, have
been quite wrong and yet excessively
sincere" he paused, still holding her
hand. and it few about the great room
like wildfre that he was paying this
public courtesy to the Italian girl whom
his mother SO avidly desired him to
marry. Perhaps, my dear Blanca d.
Este," he presently resumed, with
faint, enigmatic smile lettering at the
corners of his lips, ''you are right, prac-
tically, after all, and /, practically, am
in error. The whole affair of conserva-
tism against liberalism grows harder to
manage, imagine, every new day of
my reign. Well, thank you for your
lecture, GItis s1nsa;-" and with his odd
smile fading little, yet not wholly dy-
ing, he dropped Bianca's hand and
passed from her presence.
He had detested the idea of this enter
taipment tonight. It's Limitations in