We shrank oddly from uttering one another’s Christian name.  I was the first with it; my ‘Ottilia!’ brought soon after ‘Harry’ on her lips, and an atmosphere about us much less Arctic.

‘Ottilia, you have told me you wish me to go to England.’

‘I have.’

‘We shall be friends.’

’Yes, Harry; we cannot be quite divided; we have that knowledge for our present happiness.’

’The happy knowledge that we may have our bone to gnaw when food’s denied.  It is something.  One would like possibly, after expulsion out of Eden, to climb the gates to see how the trees grow there.  What I cannot imagine is the forecasting of any joy in the privilege.’

‘By nature or system, then, you are more impatient than I, for I can,’ said Ottilia.  She added:  ’So much of your character I divined early.  It was part of my reason for wishing you to work.  You will find that hard work in England—­but why should I preach to you Harry, you have called me here for some purpose?’

‘I must have detained you already too long.’

‘Time is not the offender.  Since I have come, the evil——­’

‘Evil?  Are not your actions free?’

’Patience, my friend.  The freer my actions, the more am I bound to deliberate on them.  I have the habit of thinking that my deliberations are not in my sex’s fashion of taking counsel of the nerves and the blood.

In truth, Harry, I should not have come but for my acknowledgement of your right to bid me come.’

’You know, princess, that in honouring me with your attachment, you imperil your sovereign rank?’

‘I do.’

‘What next?’

‘Except that it is grievously in peril, nothing!’

‘Have you known it all along?’

’Dimly-scarcely.  To some extent I knew it, but it did not stand out in broad daylight.  I have been learning the world’s wisdom recently.  Would you have had me neglect it?  Surely much is due to my father?  My relatives have claims on me.  Our princely Houses have.  My country has.’

‘Oh, princess, if you are pleading——­’

‘Can you think that I am?’

The splendour of her high nature burst on me with a shock.

I could have fallen to kiss her feet, and I said indifferently:  ’Not pleading, only it is evident the claims—­I hate myself for bringing you in antagonism with them.  Yes, and I have been learning some worldly wisdom; I wish for your sake it had not been so late.  What made me overleap the proper estimate of your rank!  I can’t tell; but now that I know better the kind of creature—­the man who won your esteem when you knew less of the world!’—­

‘Hush!  I have an interest in him, and do not suffer him to be spurned,’ Ottilia checked me.  ’I, too, know him better, and still, if he is dragged down I am in the dust; if he is abused the shame is mine.’  Her face bloomed.

Her sweet warmth of colour was transfused through my veins.