‘Kings ought to marry kings’ children,’ I observed, as she seemed to wait for some expression of opinion from me. ‘Add that boys ought to marry girls and not grown women, and you will say what the world will say as soon as it hears of this,’ she returned, with some bitterness. ‘That is what I have told Alexander; and he has sworn upon the crucifix in my presence that he will marry only me.’ ‘Leave Servia. Spend a year on the Riviera--or in Paris’--she glanced swiftly at me as I said this--‘and he may change his resolution.’ The Servian’s reply startled me. ‘I cannot. At this moment I am under secret arrest.’ ‘Under arrest?’ ‘You forget that Alexander has made himself master, and that reasons of State cover a great deal in Servia which they would not cover in France.’ I was staggered. A stranger situation I had never encountered in all my strange experience. ‘He holds you a prisoner till you consent to become his Queen!’ ‘Till I become his Queen,’ she corrected. I sat still for a minute, considering. The chancelleries and the public of Europe would never believe this story. They would think, they were already thinking and saying, that the Countess was an adventuress, luring the young King to his ruin. ‘There is one very simple solution,’ I said at last. ‘I will arrange your escape.’ ‘Impossible!’ she sighed. I frowned. ‘Pardon me, my dear Countess, but when you did me the honour to consult me, I assumed that you had some confidence in my ability. I offer to take you wherever you wish to go.’ ‘You misunderstand me, my dear friend. I do not doubt your power to release me. But my flight would become a public event; Alexander has too little self-restraint to keep silence about it. I should thus damage him as much as by accepting the throne which he offers me. He has sworn, moreover, that if I persist in my refusal, he will abdicate.’ With what sophistries will a woman deceive herself where her heart is concerned! And how worse than useless is it to reason with her. ‘You have told me enough,’ I answered, in a voice which was melancholy in spite of myself. ‘I perceive that this young monarch is not indifferent to you.’ The lovely Servian lowered her glance, and began picking a rose to pieces with her delicate fingers. ‘He is my King,’ she murmured. ‘He is the last of the dynasty of Obrenovitch, which my family have served faithfully for a hundred years. The one thing which alarms me most in the whole situation is that I have been urged to accept the King’s hand by Colonel Masileff.’ ‘Colonel Masileff?’ ‘Who is understood to be the secret head of the party in favour of Prince Peter Karageorgevitch.’ I now understood the seriousness of the affair, since it was clear that whatever step was favoured by the supporters of the Karageorgevitch claimant must be fraught with some danger to the Obrenovitch. ‘Is Alexander aware of this fact?’