V
A QUESTION OF MEMORY
KING ALEXIS was minded that all proper recognition should be made of Sophy's service to his family. It had been her fortune to protect a life very precious in his eyes. Alien from his son in temperament and pursuits, he had, none the less, considerable affection for him. But there was more than this. With the Prince was bound up the one strong feeling of a nature otherwise easy and careless. The King might go fishing on most lawful days, but it was always a Stef anovitch who fished—a prince who had married a princess of a great house, and had felt able to offer Countess Ellenburg no more than a morganatic union. The work his marriage had begun his son's was to complete. The royal house of Kravonia was still on its promotion; it lay with the Prince to make its rank acknowledged and secure.
Thus Sophy's action loomed large in the King's eyes, and he was indolently indifferent to the view taken of it in the barrack-rooms and the drinkingshops of Slavna. Two days after Mistitch's attempt, he received Sophy at the Palace with every circumstance of compliment. The Prince was not present—he made military duty an excuse—but Countess Ellenburg and her little son were in the room, and General Stenovics, with Markart in attendance, stood beside the King's chair.
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