ecret. My word, I should like to see him try! I'd
have him grovelling at my feet in five minutes."

The door opened and Oscarovitch came in. He took off the cap which had
been pulled tight over his eyes, and said:

"Well, we have arrived! Almost exactly forty-five minutes. There is
Elsinore, there is Kronborg, King Frederick's sixteenth-century castle,
and there is Marienlyst, which is to Copenhagen what Brighton is to
London, only, I must say, in a much more refined sense. Now what is
your pleasure, Miss Marmion? We have still nearly two hours before
lunch, so, if you would like an hour's stroll ashore, the gig will be
ready in a couple of minutes."

"Thank you, Prince," she said with a rewarding smile. "Dad, what do you
think? It all looks very beautiful under this sun and sky."

"Which, of course, means that you want to go ashore, Niti," said her
father. "For my own part, I certainly should like a little walk on new
ground. I have never been here before."

"Then, of course we will go," said Oscarovitch, opening the door and
going to the telegraph.

The yacht came to a standstill in a few minutes, and the gig was waiting
at the foot of the gangway ladder. They spent a very pleasant hour
ashore, and what they saw, you may read of in your Murray and Baedeker,
wherefore there is no need to set it down here. When they came aboard
again, lunch was almost ready, and the steward presented his master and
the Professor with quite exceptional cocktails in the smoking-room. Then
they went and had a wash, and the mellow gong sounded.

I am not very fond of those descriptions in stories which read like
extracts from an upholsterer's price-list, nor yet those accounts of
meals that, after all, are only menus writ large, so it may suffice to
say that the saloon of the _Grashna_ was an arrangement of sandal-wood
panels, framed in thin silver filigree, and hung with exquisite little
masterpieces in water-colour, and black and white, and crayon, mostly
sea-scapes, with here and there a beautiful head with living eyes which
followed you everywhere; that the rich yellow of the panels was enhanced
by _portieres_ and curtains of deep golden-bronze silk, and that the
domed ceiling was of pale, sky-blue enamel spangled with the
constellations of the northern heavens, which at night lit up the whole
saloon with a soft electric radiance. As for the lunch, it was as nearly
perfect as the best-paid chef afloat could make it, after his mas