"Where?" she asked, glancing around the crowded room.

"I shall have to leave that to you," he said. "Unless there is a
balcony."

"But do you think it is necessary?"

"Why not?"

"Because what I have to say does not matter."

"It matters very much to me," he replied gravely.

Hedwig went first, slipping away quietly and unnoticed. Karl asked the
Archduchess's permission to follow her, and found her waiting there
alone, rather desperately calm now, and with a tinge of excited color in
her cheeks. Because he cared a great deal, and because, as kings go,
he was neither hopelessly bad nor hard, his first words were kind and
genuine, and almost brought her to tears.

"Poor little girl!" he said.

He had dropped the curtain behind him, and they stood alone.

"Don't," said Hedwig. "I want to be very calm, and I am sorry for myself
already."

"Then you think it is all very terrible?"

She did not reply, and he drew a chair for her to the rail. When she was
seated, he took up his position beside her, one arm against a pillar.

"I wonder, Hedwig," he said, "if it is not terrible because it is new to
you, and because you do not know me very well. Not," he added hastily,
"that I think your knowing me well would be an advantage! I am not so
idiotic. But you do not know me at all, and for a good many years I must
have stood in the light of an enemy. It is not easy to readjust such
things--witness the reception I had to-day!"

"I do not think of you in that way, as--as an enemy."

"Then what is it?"

"Why must we talk about it?" Hedwig demanded, looking up at him suddenly
with a flash of her old spirit. "It will not change anything."

"Perhaps not. Perhaps--yes. You see, I am not quite satisfied. I do not
want you, unless you are willing. It would be a poor bargain for me, and
not quite fair."

A new turn, this, with a vengeance! Hedwig stared up with startled eyes.
It was not enough to be sacrificed. And as she realized all that hung on
the situation, the very life of the kingdom, perhaps the safety of her
family, everything, she closed her eyes for fear he might see the fright
in them.

Karl bent over and took one of her cold hands between his two warm ones.
"Little Hedwig," he said, "I want you to come willingly because--I care
a great deal. I would like you to care, too. Don't you think you would,
after a time?"

"After a time!" said Hedwig drearily. "That's what they all say. After a
time it doesn't matt