There was, in the manner in which she spoke these simple words, a gentle grace which evoked in the mind of the old patriot memories of the past and the fatherland.

“The Tzigana is the most charming of all!  The Tzigana is the most loved of all!” he said, in Hungarian, repeating a refrain of a Magyar song.

With a quick, almost military gesture, he saluted Andras and Marsa as they stood at the top of the steps, the sun casting upon them dancing reflections through the leaves of the trees.

The Prince and Princess responded with a wave of the hand; and General Vogotzine, who was seated under the shade of a chestnut-tree, with his coat unbuttoned and his collar open, tried in vain to rise to his feet and salute the departure of the last guest.

CHAPTER XXII

A DREAM SHATTERED

They were alone at last; free to exchange those eternal vows which they had just taken before the altar and sealed with a long, silent pressure when their hands were united; alone with their love, the devoted love they had read so long in each other’s eyes, and which had burned, in the church, beneath Marsa’s lowered lids, when the Prince had placed upon her finger the nuptial ring.

This moment of happiness and solitude after all the noise and excitement was indeed a blessed one!

Andras had placed upon the piano of the salon Michel Menko’s package, and, seated upon the divan, he held both Marsa’s hands in his, as she stood before him.

“My best wishes, Princess!” he said.  “Princess!  Princess Zilah!  That name never sounded so sweet in my ears before!  My wife!  My dear and cherished wife!” As she listened to the music of the voice she loved, Marsa said to herself, that sweet indeed was life, which, after so many trials, still had in reserve for her such joys.  And so deep was her happiness, that she wished everything could end now in a beautiful dream which should have no awakening.

“We will depart for Paris whenever you like,” said the Prince.

“Yes,” she exclaimed, sinking to his feet, and throwing her arms about his neck as he bent over her, “let us leave this house; take me away, take me away, and let a new life begin for me, the life I have longed for with you and your love!”

There was something like terror in her words, and in the way she clung to this man who was her hero.  When she said “Let us leave this house,” she thought, with a shudder, of all her cruel suffering, of all that she hated and which had weighed upon her like a nightmare.  She thirsted for a different air, where no phantom of the past could pursue her, where she should feel free, where her life should belong entirely to him.

“I will go and take off this gown,” she murmured, rising, “and we will run away like two eloping lovers.”

“Take off that gown?  Why?  It would be such a pity!  You are so lovely as you are!”