Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/277

 them that you two were here and that the palace grounds were open. Listen! Hear that!"

The song had ceased and great shouts were again storming them.

"The Princess Eloise! Our Princess Eloise!" and "Kent! Kent! Kent!"

They saw him, the man who loathed publicity, quail like a bashful youth, and saw the princess catch his hand and almost drag him toward the balcony. Then he seemed to recall something that must be done and braced himself, and strode forward. He stopped abruptly just inside the door and motioned to the king. The king smiled and stepped out, followed by the princess. Like the abrupt discharge of heavy guns the noise renewed as Kent followed them, and Von Glutz and Paulo, rigid, unmoved, came behind and took their posts in the background like watch dogs of state.

Kent stepped to the edge of the balcony and lifted his hand for silence, the same heavy, unfaltering man that had addressed them on one other occasion, when he mentally derided them and then disappeared. Again, as then, his great voice reached them like some enormous trumpet; but now there was nothing of cynicism or demagoguery in his words, no jesting with their ignorance.

"His Majesty Karl Second" [273]