Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/262

 But at last from fear, not of the gardener's smiles, but of my own ridicule, I made my start, and, as I foreshadowed to Varvilliers, it was as we walked in the woods that I began.

"What of that grenadier?" I asked her—she was sitting on a seat, while I leaned against a tree-trunk—"the grenadier you were in love with when I was at Bartenstein. You remember? You described him to me."

She blushed and laughed a little.

"He married a maid of my mother's, and became one of the hall-porters. He's grown so fat."

"The dream is ended then?"

"Yes, if it ever began," she answered. "How amused at me you must have been!"

Suddenly she perceived my gaze on her, and her eyes fell.

"He was Romance, Elsa," said I. "He has married and grown fat. His business now is to shut doors; he has shut the door on himself."

"Yes," she answered, half-puzzled, half-embarrassed.

"He had an unsuccessful rival," said I. "Do you recollect him? A lanky boy whom nobody cared much about. Elsa, the grenadier is out of the question."

Now she was agitated; but she sat still and silent. I moved and stood before her. My whole desire was to mitigate her fear and shrinking. She looked up at me gravely and steadily. It went to my heart that the grenadier was out of the question. Her lips quivered, but she maintained a tolerable composure.

"You should not say that about—about the lanky boy, Augustin," said she. "We all liked him. I liked him."