Did he know what it was he asked? He seemed to know nothing of it. He did not speak any more now of princesses, only of his princess; nor of queens, save of his heart's queen; and when his eyes asked love, they asked as though none would refuse and there could be no cause for refusal. He would have wooed his neighbor's daughter thus, and thus he wooed the sister of King Rudolf. "Will you love me?" was his question--not, "Though you love, yet dare you own you love?" He seemed to shut the whole world from her, leaving nothing but her and him; and in a world that held none but her and him she could love unblamed, untroubled, and with no trembling. "You forget who I am," she faltered once. "You are the beauty of the world," he answered smiling, and he kissed her hand--a matter about which she could make no great ado, for it was not the first time that he had kissed it. But the embassy from the Grand Duke was to come in a week, and to be received with great pomp. The ambassador was already on the way, carrying proposals and gifts. Therefore Osra went pale and sad down to the river bank that day, having declared again to the king that she would live and die unmarried. But the king had laughed again. Surely she needed kindness and consolation that sad day; but Fate had kept by her a crowning sorrow, for she found him also almost sad. At least, she could not tell whether he were sad or not; for he smiled and yet seemed ill at ease, like a man who ventures a fall with fortune, hoping and fearing. And he said to her: "Madam, in a week I return to my own country." She looked at him in silence with lips just parted. For her life she could not speak; but the sun grew dark, and the river changed its merry tune to mournful dirges. "So the dream ends," said he. "So comes the awakening. But if life were all a dream!" And his eyes sought hers. "Yes," she whispered, "if life were all a dream, sir?" "Then I should dream of two dreamers whose dream was one, and in that dream I should see them ride together at break of day from Strelsau." "Whither?" she murmured. "To Paradise," said he. "But the dream ends. If it did not end--" He paused. "If it did not end?" a breathless longing whisper echoed. "If it did not end now, it should not end even with death," said he. "You see them in your dream? You see them riding--" "Aye, swiftly, side by side, they two alone, through the morning. None is near, none knows." He seemed to be searching her face for something that yet he scarcely hoped to find. "And their dream," said he, "brings them at last to a small cottage, and there they live--" "They live?" [Illustration: "'YOU ARE THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD,' HE ANSWERED SMILING, AND HE KISSED HER HAND."] "And work," he added. "For she keeps his home while he works." "What does she do?" asked Osra, with smiling, wondering eyes. "She gets his food for him when he comes home weary in the evening, and makes a bright fire, and--"