I couldn't do it even to please you, papa, so you may be quite
sure I couldn't do it to please the king.
"And now let me look at you, Monsieur Rupert. I talked to you last
night, but I did not fairly look at you. Yes, you are really very
little altered except that you have grown into a man: but I should
have known you anywhere. Now, would you have known me?"
"Not if I had met you in the street," Rupert said. "When I talk to
you, and look at you closely, Mademoiselle Adele Dessin comes back
again; but at a casual glance you are simply Mademoiselle Adele de
Pignerolles."
"I wish I were Adele Dessin again," she said. "I should be a
thousand times happier living with my father than in this
artificial court, where no one is what they seem to be; where
everyone considers it his duty to say complimentary things; where
everyone seems to be gay and happy, but everyone is as much slaves
as if they wore chains. I break out sometimes, and astonish them."
A slight smile passed over Rupert's face; and Adele knew that he
had overheard her the evening before. The girl flushed hotly. Her
father and Madame de Soissons were talking together in a deep bay
window at the end of the room.
"So you heard me last night, Monsieur Rupert. Well, there is
nothing to be ashamed of. You were my hero when I was a child; I
don't mind saying so now. If you had made me your heroine it would
have been different, but you never did, one bit.
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