“Don’t,” she cried, holding a hand over his lips.  “For a minute—­just for a little golden minute—­let us forget thrones.”  Then as the furrow came back between her brows:  “Oh, boy, it’s my destiny to be always strong enough to resist happiness when I might have it by being less strong, and always too weak to bear bravely what must be borne—­when it can’t be helped.”

He stood silent.

After a moment she went on.  “And I love you.  Ah, you know that well enough, but up there beyond your head which I love, I see the green and white and blue flag of Galavia which I hate, and destiny commands me to be disloyal to you for loyalty to it.  On the eve of life imprisonment,” she went on, clinging to him, “I have stolen away to play truant perhaps for the last time—­still craving freedom, longing for you; and now I find freedom, and you, just to lose you again!  I can’t—­I can’t—­yes—­I can—­I will!”

Suddenly he held her off at arms’ length and looked at her with a strange wide-eyed expression of discovery.

“But,” he cried with the vehemence of a sudden thought, “you are up here—­safe!  Safe, whatever happens down there!  Nothing that occurs there can affect you!”

“Safe, of course,” she spoke wonderingly.  “What danger is there?”

The man turned.  “For God’s sake—­let me think a moment!” He dropped on the pine needles and sat with his hands covering his face and his fingers pressed into his temples.  She came over.

“Does that prevent your thinking?” she softly asked, dropping on her knees at his side and letting one hand rest on his shoulder.

For moments, lengthening into minutes, he sat immovable, fighting back the agonized and torrential flood of thought which burst upon him with unwarned temptation.  The danger was not after all a danger to the woman he loved, but a menace to his enemy.  She was safe three thousand feet above the threatening city.  He had only to hold his hand, perhaps, for a half-hour; had only to keep her here and let matters follow their course.

He was not entertaining the thought, except to assure himself that he could not entertain it, but it was racking him with its suddenness.  The King was there—­in peril.  She was here—­safe.  Insistently these two facts assaulted his brain.

“Pardon, Senor.”  Blanco broke noisily down through the pines and halted where the path emerged.  For an instant he stood in bewildered surprise.

“Pardon, Your Highness—­” he exclaimed, bending low; then, quenching the recognition in his eyes and assuming mistake, he laughed.  “Ah, I ask forgiveness, Senorita.  I mistook you for the Princess.  The resemblance is strong.  I see my error.”

“Manuel!” Benton rose unsteadily and stared at the toreador with a face pallid as chalk.  He spoke wildly, “Quick, Manuel—­have you learned anything?”

The Spaniard glanced inquiringly at the girl, and as Benton nodded reassurance went on in a lowered voice.  Only fragments of his speech reached Cara’s ears.  Her own thoughts left her too apathetic to listen.