nt when she was not quite sure
what to say. She waited therefore while she considered what all this
meant; who Coronel was, what he was doing there, even whether a
marriage with Udo was not after all the best that she could hope for
now.

Meanwhile Udo, of course, blundered along gaily.

"We aren't exactly, Princess--I mean----What are you doing here,
Coronel?--I didn't know, Princess, that you---- The Countess and I
were just having a little--I was just telling her what you said
about--How did you get here, Coronel?"

"Shall we tell him?" said Coronel, with a smile at Hyacinth.

Hyacinth nodded.

"I rode," said Coronel. "It's a secret," he added.

"But I didn't know that you----"

"We find that we have really known each other a very long time,"
explained Hyacinth.

"And hearing that there was to be a wedding," added Coronel----

Belvane made up her mind. Coronel was evidently a very different man
from Udo. If he stayed in Euralia as adviser--more than adviser she
guessed--to Hyacinth, her own position would not be in much doubt.
And as for the King, it might be months before he came back, and when
he did come would he remember her? But to be Queen of Araby was no
mean thing.

"We didn't want it to be known yet," she said shyly, "but you have
guessed our secret, your Royal Highness." She looked modestly at the
ground, and, feeling for her reluctant lover's hand, went on, "Udo and
I"--here she squeezed the hand, and, finding it was Coronel's, took
Udo's boldly without any more maidenly nonsense--"Udo and I love each
other."

"Say something, Udo," prompted Coronel.

"Er--yes," said Udo, very unwillingly, and deciding he would explain
it all afterwards. Whatever his feelings for the Countess, he was not
going to be rushed into a marriage.

"Oh, I'm so glad," said Hyacinth. "I felt somehow that it must be
coming, because you've seen so _much_ of each other lately. Wiggs and
I have often talked about it together."

("What has happened to the child?" thought Belvane. "She isn't a
child at all, she's grown up.")

"There's no holding Udo once he begins," volunteered Coronel. "He's
the most desperate lover in Araby.

"My father will be so excited when he hears," said Hyacinth. "You
know, of course, that his Majesty comes back to-morrow with all his
army."

She did not swoon or utter a cry. She did not plead the vapours or
the megrims. She took unflinching what must have been the biggest
sh