"I want your love, your true love, your deep love, the love of all your soul," said the King in a low voice, gazing into her brown eyes. "Ah! that is not mine to command." "Will it never be mine to command, Ianthe? Speak truth. If it will never be mine, I will not be King of Alsander." "You are almost wooing me," exclaimed the Princess, laughing a little nervously, "and I rather wish I were dressed for the part. But is it not rather fantastic to claim my love without offering your own? And is it not rather insolent," she added abruptly, as though a flash of memory had caused a flash of rage, "for a man who has given his heart to a peasant girl to demand the love of a Princess?" "You are insincere in your reproaches," replied the King. "You know from the very sound of my words that I have forgotten all the women of the world but you. You know I stand on the threshold of Love's house: but how do I know if you will ever join me, to enter side by side?" Ianthe laid her hands lightly on the King's shoulder. "You will not win me before you woo, ungallant heart!" said she. "But if the day comes when you decide that I am worthy of your attentions, remember that my love, like that of fairy Princesses of China or of Ind, must be won by high achievement. It may be that I could, like a woman without shame, cry out this very hour, 'I love you,' were it not that my heart is lost already, pledged to a passion which surpasses all love I can feel for man. My body's love I will gladly give to whoever, like you, is beautiful and young, my friendship to whoever, like you, is gentle and wise, but my soul's love is my love for the Holy City of Alsander. There is not a court or a garden, not a stone of the cobbles of Alsander over which I would not slaughter the lover of my body or the friend who kept my thoughts if that would keep these holy streets from pollution and slavery. I love this country as no one has ever loved it before, save he who made it, my forefather, the great Kradenda. Its air is to me a more pellucid air, its rocks more ancient, its sea more blue, its flowers more fragrant than other airs and rocks and seas and flowers. And if a man would desire to have part of this deep love--and even with a part of it to be loved as no hero was ever loved in days of old by the great-bosomed women of the Greeks, then that man must become part of Alsander. He must fight, work, strive, for the glory of the kingdom. He would have his reward: for I am not a capricious woman but one whose heart is true, girl as I am. "But do not answer me now: the minutes are flying on: your subjects will miss you: we must go out again into the square. Quick! I hear no more the dancers laughing and the splendid music has ceased sighing among the stars; they are waiting for their King to join them. Listen! The Cathedral bells of Alsander are tolling the midnight hour." CHAPTER XV PERONELLA AND THE PRIEST