The attitude was most becoming and
effective--and she knew it. So far as her bearing showed, the
situation was the most natural imaginable. And, chancing to catch my
eye, she actually gave me her most fetching smile.
She got a stare in answer, and I turned to the King.
"I have told Your Majesty of a Mrs. Spencer, who claims to be my wife,"
I said. "She has sought an audience with the Governor of Dornlitz, and
demanded to know why orders have been issued that she be refused exit
from the city. I offered to explain, if she, on her part, would
disclose her reasons for coming to Valeria. She refused, and was about
to depart, when, seeing Your Majesty, she suddenly changed her mind and
agreed to bargain. Have we your permission to proceed?"
The King understood the situation, instantly--and I could detect a bit
of a smile under his grey moustache.
"Be seated, madame," he said. "I am interested--unless, of course, you
do not care for us to hear it."
She dropped him a wonderful courtesy--acquired, doubtless, in her
French Convent school.
"Your Majesty is more than welcome to every word of my story," she
answered, with ready frankness. "The Grand Duke Armand knows it quite
as well as I; though he affects otherwise, because it pleases him to
pretend that I am not his wife.
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