"Try me again," he said gently. "If I am older, perhaps I am also wiser,
and therefore even more willing to be guided--we all knew that." She
broke off, as though she felt her mistake and wished to make a fresh
beginning. Again her face was full of fluctuating meaning; and he saw,
beneath its shallow surface, the eddy of incoherent impulses. When she
spoke, it was with a noble gravity.
"Your Highness," she said, "does not take me into your counsels; but it
is no secret at court and in the town that you have in contemplation a
grave political measure."
"I have made no secret of it," he replied.
"No--or I should be the last to know it!" she exclaimed, with one of her
sudden lapses into petulance.
Odo made no reply. Her futility was beginning to weary him. She saw it
and again attempted an impersonal dignity of manner.
"It has been your Highness's choice," she said, "to exclude me from
public affairs. Perhaps I was not fitted by education or intelligence to
share in the cares of government. Your Highness will at least bear
witness that I have scrupulously respected your decision, and have never
attempted to intrude upon your counsels."
Odo bowed. It would have been useless to remind her that he had sought
her help and failed to obtain it.
"I have accepted my position," she continued. "I have led the life to
which it has pleased your Highness to restrict me. But I have not been
able to detach my heart as well as my thoughts from your Highness's
interests.
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