Then I flushed up scarlet; for I was sure he was mocking me.
"Sir," I cried, "you might have spared—"
He lifted his eyes a little.
"I assure you, Mr. Mallock," he said, "that I mean what I say. You have been very faithful; you have ventured your life again and again for me; you have refused rewards, except the very smallest; you have lost even your sweetheart in my service; and now, when all is within your reach again, you fling it back at me. It is not very gracious; but it is very Christian, as I understand Christianity."
I said nothing. What was there to say? I seemed a very poor Christian to myself.
"Come! come, Mr. Mallock," pursued the King very gently and kindly. "Think of it once again. You shall have what you please—your Viscounty or anything else of that sort; and you shall keep your lodgings and remain here as my friend. What do you say to that?"
For a moment again I hesitated; for it is not to everyone that a King offers his friendship. If it had been that alone I think I might have yielded, for I knew that I loved this man in spite of all his wickedness and his treatment of me—for that, and for my "apostleship" as he called it, I might have stayed. But at the word Viscounty all turned to bitterness: I remembered my childish dreams and the sweetness of them, and the sweetness of my dear love who was to have shared them; and all turned to bitterness and vanity.
"No, Sir," said I—and I felt my lips tremble. "No, Sir. I will be ungracious and—and Christian to the end. I am resolved to go; and nothing in this world shall keep me from it."
The King stood up abruptly; and I rose with him. I did not know whether he were angry or not; and I did not greatly care. He stepped away from me, and began to walk up and down. One of his bitch-spaniels whined at him from her basket, lifting her great liquid eyes that were not unlike his own; and he stooped and caressed her for a moment. Then the clocks began to chime, one after the other, for it was eight o'clock, and I heard them at it, too, in the bed-chamber beyond. There would be thirty or forty of them, I daresay, in the two chambers. So for a minute or two he went up and down; and I have but to close my eyes now, to see him again. He was limping a little from the sore on his heel; but he carried himself very kingly, his swarthy face looking straight before him, and his lips pursed. I think that indeed he was a little angry, but that he was resolved not to shew it.
Suddenly he wheeled on me, and held out his hand.