Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/109

 can't fly kites," said I, having the description of her ideal in my mind. "You wouldn't like me to be your husband, would you?"

Elsa, unlike myself, was neither embarrassed nor amused. The mild and interested gravity of her face persisted unchanged.

"I don't know," she said meditatively.

With most of the faults that can beset one of my station, I do not plead guilty to any excessive degree of vainglory. I was flattered that the child hesitated.

"Then you like me rather?" I asked.

"Yes—rather." She paused, and then added: "If I married you I should be queen, shouldn't I, Cousin Augustin?"

"Yes," I assured her.

"I should think that's rather nice, isn't it?"

"It isn't any particular fun being king," said I in a burst of confidence.

"Isn't it?" she asked, her eyes growing rounder. "Still, I think I should like it." Her tone was quite confident; even at that age, as I have observed, she knew very well what she liked. For my part I remembered so vividly my own early dreams and later awakenings that I would not cut short her guileless visions; moreover, to generalize from one's self is the most fatal foolishness, even while it is the most inevitable.

During the remaining hours of my visit Elsa treated me, I must not say with more affection, but certainly with more attention. She was interested in me; I had become to her a source of possibilities, dim to vision but gorgeous to imagination. I knew so well the images that floated before a childish mind, able to gape at them, only half able to grasp them.