But since you are the King as well as my brother, I make all excuses to your Majesty for having been the cause of your fright." Dolores understood what had happened, as Don John meant that she should.
She knew also that her position was growing more and more desperate and untenable at every moment; yet she could not blame her lover for what he had said.

Even to save her, she would not have had him cringe to the King and ask pardon for his hasty word and movement, still less could she have borne that he should not cry out in protest at a word that insulted her, though ever so lightly.
"I do not desire to insist upon our kinship," said Philip coldly.

"If I chose to acknowledge it when you were a boy, it was out of respect for the memory of the Emperor.

It was not in the expectation of being called brother by the son of a German burgher's daughter." Don John did not wince, for the words, being literally true and without exaggeration, could hardly be treated as an insult, though they were meant for one, and hurt him, as all reference to his real mother always did.
"Yes," he said, still scornfully.

"I am the son of a German burgher's daughter, neither better nor worse.