Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/162

 by my bed. The Countess and Wetter were in mental image no less plain. I rose and pulled up the blinds; the night had begun to pass from black to gray; for a moment I pictured the Prince, not looking down from heaven, but wandering somewhere in such a dim cold twilight. The message that his eyes had given me became very clear to me. It had turned my cheek red; it sent an excitement through me now. It would not go easily into words, but, as I sought to frame it, that other speech came back to me—the speech of the Prince's enemy. Wetter had said, "You're king at last." What else had Hammerfeldt meant to say? Nothing else. That was his message also. From both it came, the same reminder, the same exhortation. The living man and the dead joined their voices in this brief appeal. It did not need my mother's despair or Victoria's petulance to lend it point. I was amazed to find how it came home to me. Now I perceived how, up to this time, my life had been centred in Hammerfeldt. I was obeying him or disobeying, accepting his views or questioning them, docile or rebellious; when I rebelled, I rebelled for the pleasure of it, for the excitement it gave, the spice of daring, the air of independence, for curiosity, to see how he would take it, what saying he would utter, what resource of persuasion or argument he would invoke. It was strange to think that now if I obeyed I should not gratify, if I disobeyed I could make him uneasy no more. If I went right, there was none to reap credit; if I went wrong, none who should have controlled me better; none to say, "You are wise, sire"; none to smile as he said, "We must all learn wisdom, sire." It was very strange to be without old Hammerfeldt.