And at all events there had been that hour in the King's Alcove.

At last, as he weighed that hour against the fantasy of all the rest, St.George understood and lived the divine madness of all great moments, the madness that realizes one star and is content that all the heavens shall march unintelligibly past so long as that single shining is not dimmed.
But King Otho was riding no such griffin with sun-gold wings.

King Otho was genuinely and personally interested in the woman's words.
He turned to Prince Tabnit with animation.
"Really, Prince," he said, "is it so?
Pray do not deny it unless there is no other way, for I am before all things interested.

It is far more important to me that you tell me as much as you can tell, than that you deny or even disprove it." Prince Tabnit smiled in the eagerly interested face of his sovereign, and rose and came to the edge of the dais, his garments embroidered by a thousand needles touching and floating about him; and it was as if he reached those before him by a kind of spiritual magnetism, not without sublimity.
"My people," he said--and his voice had all the tenderness that they knew so well--"this is some conspiracy of those to whom we have shown the utmost hospitality.

I would have shielded your king, for he was also my sovereign and I owed him allegiance.