Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/274

 are his they are hers. Hers and his are they till their lives' end; ours while our hearts are worthy to conceive of them."

They were silent when he sat down. He had outraged etiquette; nobody had ever said that sort of thing before on such an occasion. Bederhof searched in vain through an exhaustive memorandum prepared in the Chancellery. He consulted the clerks. Nobody had ever said anything in the least like it. They were puzzled. It was all most excellent, most loyal, calculated to impress the people in the most favourable way. But, deuce take it, why did the man smile while he talked, and why did his voice change from a ring of a trumpet to the rasp of a file? The Chamber at large was rather upset by Wetter's oration.

Ah, Wetter, but you had an audience fit though small! I read it—I read it all. I, in my study at Artenberg; I, alone. My mind leaped with yours; my lips bent to the curve of yours. Surely you spoke to please me, Wetter? To show that one man knew? To display plainest truth by the medium of a giant's lies? I could interpret. The language was known to me; the irony was after my own heart.

"It's dashed queer stuff," said William Adolphus, scratching his head. "All right in a story book, you know; but in the Chamber! Do you think he's off his head?"

"I don't think so, William Adolphus," said I.

"Victoria says it's hardly—hardly decent, you know."

"I shouldn't call it exactly indecent."

"No, not exactly indecent," he admitted. "But what the devil did he want to say it there for?" "Ah, that I can't answer."