“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.  I have not learned to be indifferent to your danger.”

Odo looked up quickly.  She ceased to interest him when she spoke by the book, and he was impatient to make an end.

“You spoke of danger before,” he said.  “What danger?”

“That of forcing on your subjects liberties which they do not desire!”

“Ah,” said he thoughtfully.  That was all, then.  What a poor tool she made!  He marvelled that, in all these years, Trescorre’s skilful hands should not have fashioned her to better purpose.

“Your Highness,” he said, “has reminded me that since our marriage you had lived withdrawn from public affairs.  I will not pause to dispute by whose choice this has been; I will in turn merely remind your Highness that such a life does not afford much opportunity of gauging public opinion.”

In spite of himself a note of sarcasm had again crept into his voice; but to his surprise she did not seem to resent it.

“Ah,” she exclaimed, with more feeling than she had hitherto shown, “you fancy that, because I am kept in ignorance of what you think, I am ignorant also of what others think of you!  Believe me,” she said, with a flash of insight that startled him, “I know more of you than if we stood closer.  But you mistake my purpose.  I have not sent for you to force my counsels on you.  I have no desire to appear ridiculous.  I do not ask you to hear what I think of your course, but what others think of it.”