cert at
Buckingham Palace, and on Thursday and Friday at a multiplicity of
dances. Take these things into consideration, and is it necessary for me
to add that by the end of the week I was head over ears in love?

CHAPTER VI.

"My dear old fellow, how well you are looking!" said Max, as he drew off
his gloves and brushed some dust from his coat sleeve. He had just
arrived from Yorkshire, and had arranged to spend a portion of his leave
in town before going down to Hampshire to visit our respected parents.

"I am wonderfully fit," I answered. "How are you?"

"Only pretty well," he replied, and I noticed as he spoke that his face
looked older and more careworn than when I had last seen him. What was
more, his manner seemed to have lost much of its old vivacity. The
change startled me more than I can say, and my fears were far from being
allayed when, half an hour later, he communicated to me the direful
intelligence that he had determined to resign his commission in the
army.

"I cannot get on with it," he said. "I do not take the least interest in
it; and, if the truth must be told, I am far better out of it. I am only
sorry that they ever permitted me to take it up."

"My dear old fellow," I answered, "this is the worst news that I have
heard for a long time. You surely cannot be serious?"

"I could not be more serious if my life depended upon it," he returned.
"Don't imagine that I have acted hastily and without thought. I have
given the matter the fullest possible consideration, and the step I am
about to take is the result. It will hurt our mother terribly, I fear,
but it cannot be helped."

"And what do you intend to do when you have left the army?" I asked,
more for the sake of saying something and having time to collect my
thoughts, than for any other reason.

"I don't know," he replied gloomily. "Upon my word, I do not. The truth
of the matter is, Paul, old man, I'm a failure, an abject failure. I
have guessed it for years, and now I am certain of it."

He looked so sad, that I crossed the room and took his hand. "You musn't
say that," I began. "You know how proud we all are of you, and how our
hopes are centred on you."

Then, with what was for me unusual earnestness, I continued, "Think of
Pannonia! This wretched _fiasco_ of a republic cannot endure much
longer, and then our father will abdicate in your favour, and you will
be king. Isn't that something to look forward to and to work for?"