ally I'm a little out of practice."

"I'm sorry," said Belvane. "I'm afraid I can't pass you."

Udo couldn't think what had happened to the conversation. With a
great effort he extracted himself from it.

"Enough of this, Countess," he said sternly. "I have your admission
that it was you who put this enchantment on me."

"It was I. I wasn't going to have you here interfering with my
plans."

"Your plans to rob the Princess."

Belvane felt that it was useless to explain the principles of
largesse-throwing to Udo. There will always be men like Udo and Roger
Scurvilegs who take these narrow matter-of-fact views. One merely
wastes time in arguing with them.

"My plans," she repeated.

"Very well. I shall go straight to the Princess, and she will unmask
you before the people."

Belvane smiled happily. One does not often get such a chance.

"And who," she asked sweetly, "will unmask your Royal Highness before
the people, so that they may see the true Prince Udo underneath?"

"What do you mean?" said Udo, though he was beginning to guess.

"That noble handsome countenance which is so justly the pride of
Araby--how shall we show that to the people? They'll form such a
mistaken idea of it if they all see you like this, won't they?"

Udo was quite sure now that he understood. Hyacinth had understood at
the very beginning.

[Illustration: _He forgot his manners, and made a jump towards her_]

[Illustration: _She glided gracefully behind the sundial in a pretty
affectation of alarm_]

"You mean that if the Princess Hyacinth falls in with your plans, you
will restore me to my proper form, but that otherwise you will leave
me like this?"

"One's actions are very much misunderstood," sighed Belvane. "I've no
doubt that that is how it will appear to future historians."

(To Roger, certainly.)

It was too much for Udo. He forgot his manners and made a jump
towards her. She glided gracefully behind the sundial in a pretty
affectation of alarm . . . and the next moment Udo decided that the
contest between them was not to be settled by such rough-and-tumble
methods as these. The fact that his tail had caught in something
helped him to decide.

Belvane was up to him in an instant.

"There, there!" she said soothingly, "Let _me_ undo it for your Royal
Highness." She talked pleasantly as she worked at it. "Every little
accident teaches us something. Now if you'd been a rabbit this
wouldn't have happ