"Now, you will
go, won't you?"
"I don't know that I care about it!"
"Oh, you're too exasperating!"
"And I don't think I can go to Strelsau. My dear Rose, would it
be--suitable?"
"Oh, nobody remembers that horrid old story now."
Upon this, I took out of my pocket a portrait of the King of Ruritania.
It had been taken a month or two before he ascended the throne. She
could not miss my point when I said, putting it into her hands:
"In case you've not seen, or not noticed, a picture of Rudolf V, there
he is. Don't you think they might recall the story, if I appeared at the
Court of Ruritania?"
My sister-in-law looked at the portrait, and then at me.
"Good gracious!" she said, and flung the photograph down on the table.
"What do you say, Bob?" I asked.
Burlesdon got up, went to a corner of the room, and searched in a heap
of newspapers. Presently he came back with a copy of the Illustrated
London News. Opening the paper, he displayed a double-page engraving of
the Coronation of Rudolf V at Strelsau. The photograph and the picture
he laid side by side. I sat at the table fronting them; and, as I
looked, I grew absorbed. My eye travelled from my own portrait to Sapt,
to Strakencz, to the rich robes of the Cardinal, to Black Michael's
face, to the stately figure of the princess by his side.
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