p revived in my person, and the sceptre of
Rameses replaced in the hand of Nitocris the Queen."

The Prince was silent for a few moments. To grant the seemingly
extravagant demand meant to reduce the splendid dream and scheme of his
life to cold, tangible writing, and to put into this man's hand the
power to betray him. On the other hand, their aims were one, and only
through him could Phadrig hope to realise his dreams. Of course they
were only dreams; but he was faithful to them, and so he would be
faithful to him. At the worst it would be easy to arrange a burglary,
or, for the matter of that, a murder in Candler's Court, and that would
make an end of the matter.

"Very well, Phadrig," he said at length. "It is settled. I will trust
you, for it is necessary that we should trust each other. You shall have
what you ask for within a week. Now I must go. I shall tell them that I
have been arranging the exhibition of your powers which you are going to
give them. It will be well to startle them sufficiently to shake their
British beef-sense up into something like fear. Make them wonder, but,
for the sake of our hostess, don't frighten them too much."

Phadrig only acknowledged his promise with a bow, and he turned away and
joined the growing group in which Nitocris and Brenda were still the
central objects of attraction.

+------------------------------------------------------------+
|FOOTNOTE: |
| |
|[1] The Doctrine, of course, affords the same explanation of|
|friendships between man and man, and woman and woman. |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------+

CHAPTER XI

THE MARVELS OF PHADRIG

The time, about an hour or so before tea, was occupied by the guests
according to their varying tastes--in tennis, croquet, more or less
good-natured gossip, and flirtations which may or may not have been
serious.

Nitocris saw with growing cause for self-gratulation that Lord Leighton
and Brenda were decidedly attracted towards each other. He, in spite of
having received his gracious, but, as he well knew, final _conge_ from
Nitocris, still felt that he was not quite playing the game with
himself; but for all that it was impossible for him not to see that the
emotion, which was even now stirring in his heart, awakened