“I wish I had known.”
‘You never – came to me that – night.”
“I did not trust myself,’ he answered. “But Mautya is not my mistress, my precious one. She is in fact very happily married to the Voivode, who would undoubtedly stab me to death if I should even approach his wife in such a manner!”
“Oh – I am – glad, so very, very glad!” Ilona whispered. “I could not sleep for thinking of you.”
“And I could not sleep for wanting you, my dearest heart,” the Prince said. “But I thought when I saw you leaving the gypsy gathering that you were merely shocked, and that my efforts to make your heart beat faster and bring a flicker of fire into your eyes had failed.”
“If only I had – known you – felt like – that.”
“How could you look so proud, so unemotional and at the same time so exquisitely be
