Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/212

 "I can't call such a thing to mind, mademoiselle."

"Ah, you can't call it to mind! No, you can't call it to mind. It seems to me that there is a difference, then, between politicians and kings."

Madame Briande was moving about the room in evident discomfort. Wetter was sitting with his hand clenched on the table and his eyes downcast.

Coralie looked long and intently at him. Then she turned her eyes on me. I took out a cigarette, lit it, and smiled at her.

"You—you would get under the table?" she asked me.

"You catch my meaning perfectly."

"Then aren't you ashamed to sit at it?"

"Yes," said I, and laughed.

"Ah!" she cried, shaking her fist at me, and herself laughing. Then she leaned over toward me and whispered, "You shall retract that."

Wetter looked up and saw her whispering to me, and laughing as she whispered. He frowned, and I saw his hand tremble on the table. Though I laughed and fenced with her and defied her, I was myself in some excitement. I seemed to be playing a match; and I had confidence in my game.

Wetter spoke abruptly in a harsh but carefully restrained voice.

"It is not for me to question the King's account of himself," he said, "but so far as I am concerned your question did me a wrong. Openly I come here, openly I leave here. All know why I come, and what I desire in coming. I ask nothing better than to declare it before all the city."

She rose and made him a curtsey, then she gave a slight yawn and observed:

"So now we know just where we are."