For Strakencz urged on
me the need of a speedy marriage, and my own inclinations seconded him
with such terrible insistence that I feared for my resolution. I do not
believe that I should have done the deed I dreamt of; but I might have
come to flight, and my flight would have ruined the cause. And--yes, I
am no saint (ask my little sister-in-law), and worse still might have
happened.
It is perhaps as strange a thing as has ever been in the history of a
country that the King's brother and the King's personator, in a time of
profound outward peace, near a placid, undisturbed country town, under
semblance of amity, should wage a desperate war for the person and life
of the King. Yet such was the struggle that began now between Zenda and
Tarlenheim. When I look back on the time, I seem to myself to have been
half mad. Sapt has told me that I suffered no interference and listened
to no remonstrances; and if ever a King of Ruritania ruled like a
despot, I was, in those days, the man. Look where I would, I saw nothing
that made life sweet to me, and I took my life in my hand and carried it
carelessly as a man dangles an old glove. At first they strove to guard
me, to keep me safe, to persuade me not to expose myself; but when they
saw how I was set, there grew up among them--whether they knew the truth
or not--a feeling that Fate ruled the issue, and that I must be left to
play my game with Michael my own way.
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