"Burroughs, Edgar Rice - The Mad King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

Which was the girl's way.

"Do you think that you would like me better in the green
wastebasket hat with the red roses?" asked Barney.

A very sad look came into the girl's eyes. It was pitiful to
think that this big, handsome young man, for whose return
to the throne all Lutha had prayed for ten long years, was
only a silly half-wit. What might he not have accomplished
for his people had this terrible misfortune not overtaken
him! In every other way he seemed fitted to be the savior
of his country. If she could but make him remember!

"Your majesty," she said, "do you not recall the time that
your father came upon a state visit to my father's castle?
You were a little boy then. He brought you with him. I was
a little girl, and we played together. You would not let me
call you 'highness,' but insisted that I should always call
you Leopold. When I forgot you would accuse me of lese-
majeste, and sentence me to--to punishment.'

"What was the punishment?" asked Barney, noticing her
hesitation and wishing to encourage her in the pretty turn
her dementia had taken.

Again the girl hesitated; she hated to say it, but if it
would help to recall the past to that poor, dimmed mind,
it was her duty.

"Every time I called you 'highness' you made me give
you a--a kiss," she almost whispered.

"I hope," said Barney, "that you will be guilty of lese-
majeste often."

"We were little children then, your majesty," the girl re-
minded him.

Had he thought her of sound mind Mr. Custer might have
taken advantage of his royal prerogatives on the spot, for
the girl's lips were most tempting; but when he remembered
the poor, weak mind, tears almost came to his eyes, and
there sprang to his heart a great desire to protect and guard
this unfortunate child.

"And when I was Crown Prince what were you, way back
there in the beautiful days of our childhood?" asked Barney.

"Why, I was what I still am, your majesty," replied the
girl. "Princess Emma von der Tann."