er. Marriage is always the same--after a time."

Karl rather winced at that, and released her hands, but put them down
gently. "Why should marriage be always the same, after a time?" he
inquired.

"This sort of marriage, without love."

"It is hardly that, is it? I love you."

"I wonder how much you love me."

Karl smiled. He was on his own ground here. The girlish question put him
at ease. "Enough for us both, at first," he said. "After that--"

"But," said Hedwig desperately, "suppose I know I shall never care for
you, the way you will want me to. You talk of being fair. I want to be
fair to you. You have a right--" She checked herself abruptly. After
all, he might have a right to know about Nikky Larisch. But there were
others who had rights, too--Otto to his throne, her mother and Hilda
and all the others, to safety, her grandfather to die in peace, the only
gift she could give him.

"What I think you want to tell me, is something I already know," Karl
said gravely. "Suppose I am willing to take that chance? Suppose I am
vain enough, or fool enough, to think that I can make you forget certain
things, certain people. What then?"

"I do not forget easily."

"But you would try?"

"I would try," said Hedwig, almost in a whisper.

Karl bent over and taking her hands, raised her to her feet.

"Darling," he said, and suddenly drew her to him. He covered her with
hot kisses, her neck, her face, the soft angle below her ear. Then
he held her away from him triumphantly. "Now," he said, "have you
forgotten?"

But Hedwig, scarlet with shame, faced him steadily. "No," she said.

Later in the evening the old King received a present, a rather wilted
rose, to which was pinned a card with "Best wishes from Ferdinand
William Otto" printed on it in careful letters.

It was the only flower the King had received during his illness.

When, that night, he fell asleep, it was still clasped in his old hand,
and there was a look of grim tenderness on the face on the pillow,
turned toward his dead son's picture.

CHAPTER XXXI. LET METTLICH GUARD HIS TREASURE

Troubled times now, with the Carnival only a day or two off, and the
shop windows gay with banners; with the press under the house of the
concierge running day and night, and turning out vast quantities of
flaming bulletins printed in red; with the Committee of Ten in almost
constant session, and Olga Loschek summoned before it, to be told of the
passage, a