Of all the men on earth, he was the best! Meanwhile tears of genuine
compassion flowed from her eyes and, with passionate vehemence, she
declared that no power in the world should keep her from him. The mere
sound of her voice, she knew, would be a cordial to him.

So Master Adrian had not been mistaken.

It was not only in song that she was capable of deep feeling, and the
love which had seized the Emperor Charles so late, and yet so powerfully,
had not gone far astray.

He could scarcely have bestowed it upon a more beautiful woman. While
pleasure in her new surroundings held sway over her, it was a real
pleasure to see her face. But this creature, so richly gifted by the
grace of God, was not suited for his modest young friend; this had become
especially evident to him when an almost evil expression escaped her lips
while she emptied the vial of her wrath upon Wolf's murderer.

If she deemed herself worthy of his master's love, she would not lack
Adrian's protection, which was the more effective the more persistently
he refrained from asking of the Emperor's favour even the slightest thing
for himself, his wife, or others; that the time would come when she would
need it, he was certain.

No one knew the Emperor so well as he, and he saw before him the cliffs
which threatened to shatter the little ship of this love bond. Already
an imprudent violation of his extreme sense of the dignity of majesty, or
of the confidence which he bestowed upon her, might become fatal to it.