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Rh have no business with passions. Not even at the walls of the palace did he stop; for when at last I handed Flavia down the broad marble steps and into her carriage there was a great crowd awaiting us, and we were welcomed with deafening cheers. What could I do? Had I spoken then they would have refused to believe that I was not the king; they might have believed that the king had run mad. By Sapt's devices and my own ungoverned passion I had been forced on, and the way back had closed behind me; and the passion still drove me in the same direction as the devices seduced me. I faced all Strelsau that night as the king and the accepted suitor of the Princess Flavia.

At last, at three in the morning, when the cold light of dawning day began to steal in, I was in my dressing room, and Sapt alone was with me. I sat like a man dazed, staring into the fire; he puffed at his pipe; Fritz was gone to bed, having almost refused to speak to me. On the table by me lay a rose; it had been in Flavia's dress, and as we parted she had kissed it and given it to me.