And
they really show better in artificial light, which softens the
effect of time."
Half an hour was passed in the gallery. It was very pleasant to
listen to her voice as she described this and that painting, and
the archbishop's adventures in securing them. It did not seem
possible to him that she was a princess, perhaps destined to
become a queen, so free was she from the attributes of royalty,
so natural and ingenuous. He caught each movement of her
delicate head, each gesture of her hand, the countless
inflections of her voice, the lights which burned or died away
in the dark wine of her eyes.
Poor devil! he mused, himself in mind; poor fool! He forgot the
world, he forgot that he was a prisoner on parole, he forgot the
strife between the kingdom and the duchy, he forgot everything
but the wild impossible love which filled his senses. He forgot
even Prince Frederick of Carnavia.
In truth, the world was "a sorry scheme of things." It was
grotesque with inequalities. He had no right to love her; it was
wrong to give in to the impulses of the heart, the natural,
human impulses. A man can beat down the stone walls of a fort,
scale the impregnable heights of a citadel, master the earth and
the seas, but he can not surmount the invisible barriers which
he himself erected in the past ages--the quality of birth.
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