"I think so too," said the Prince; and he shut her mouth with a kiss.
* * * * *
"And now," said the Prince some time afterwards, "let us go to that
old sinner Fritzing."
Priscilla hung back, reluctant to deal this final blow to the heart
that had endured so many. "He'll be terribly shocked," she said.
But the Prince declared it had to be done; and hand in hand they went
out into the street, and opening Fritzing's door stood before him.
He was still absorbed in his AEschylus, had been sitting absorbed in
the deeds of the dead and departed, of the long dead Xerxes, the long
dead Darius, the very fish, voiceless but voracious, long since as
dead as the most shredded of the sailors,--he had been sitting
absorbed in these various corpses all the while that in the next room,
on the other side of a few inches of plaster and paper, so close you
would have thought his heart must have burned within him, so close you
would have thought he must be scorched, the living present had been
pulsing and glowing, beating against the bright bars of the future,
stirring up into alertness a whole row of little red-headed souls till
then asleep, souls with golden eyelashes, souls eager to come and be
princes and princesses of--I had almost revealed the mighty nation's
name.
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