Then she stamped her foot and said violently, "Send him
away! I hate him." But curiosity got the better of her hate. She felt a
strong desire to see the meddlesome man who had thrust himself between
her and her lover; and before her woman had got so far as the door, she
said, "Let him up to me!" She was again surprised when Wogan was
admitted, for she expected a stout and burly soldier, stupid and
confident, of the type which blunders into success through sheer
ignorance of the probabilities of defeat. Mr. Wogan, for his part, saw
the glowing original of the picture at Bologna, but armed at all points
with hostility.

"Your business," said she, curtly. Wogan no less curtly replied that he
had a wish to escort Mlle. de Caprara to Bologna. He spoke as though he
was suggesting a walk on the Campagna.

"And why should I travel to Bologna?" she asked. Wogan explained. The
explanation required delicacy, but he put it in as few words as might
be. There were slanderers at work. Her Highness the Princess Clementina
was in great distress; a word from Mlle. de Caprara would make all
clear.

"Why should I trouble because the Princess Clementina has a crumpled
rose-leaf in her bed? I will not go," said Mlle. de Caprara.

"Yet her Highness may justly ask why the King lingers in Spain." Wogan
saw a look, a smile of triumph, brighten for an instant on the angry
face.

"It is no doubt a humiliation to the Princess Clementina," said Maria
Vittoria, with a great deal of satisfaction. "But she must learn to bear
humiliation like other women."

"But she will reject the marriage," urged Wogan.

"The fool!" cried Maria Vittoria, and she laughed almost gaily. "I will
not budge an inch to persuade her to it. Let her fancy what she will and
weep over it! I hate her; therefore she is out of my thought."

Wogan was not blind to the inspiriting effect of his argument upon Maria
Vittoria. He had, however, foreseen it, and he continued
imperturbably,--

"No doubt you think me something of a fool, too, to advance so unlikely
a plea. But if her Highness rejects the marriage, who suffers? Her
Highness's name is already widely praised for her endurance, her
constancy. If, after all, at the last moment she scornfully rejects that
for which she has so stoutly ventured, whose name, whose cause, will
suffer most? It will be one more misfortune, one more disaster, to add
to the crushing weight under which the King labours. There will be
ignominy;