d marry her yourself."

Nikky, being beyond speech for an instant and looking, had His Royal
Highness but seen him, very tragic and somewhat rigid, the Crown Prince
went on:

"She's a very nice girl," he said; "I think she would make a good wife."

There was something of reproach in his tone. He had confidently planned
that Nikky would marry Hedwig, and that they could all live on forever
in the Palace. But, the way things were going, Nikky might marry
anybody, and go away to live, and he would lose him.

"Yes," said Nikky, in a strange voice, "she--I am sure she would make a
good wife."

At which Prince Ferdinand William Otto turned and looked at him. "I
wish you would marry her yourself," he said with his nearest approach to
impatience. "I think she'd be willing. I'll ask her, if you want me to."

Half-past three, then, and Nikky trying to explain, within the limits
of the boy's understanding of life, his position. Members of royal
families, he said, looking far away, over the child's head, had to do
many things for the good of the country. And marrying was one of them.
Something of old Mettlich's creed of prosperity for the land he gave,
something of his own hopelessness, too, without knowing it. He sat, bent
forward, his hands swung between his knees, and tried to visualize,
for Otto's understanding and his own heartache, the results of such a
marriage.

Some of it the boy grasped. A navy, ships, a railroad to the sea--those
he could understand. Treaties were beyond his comprehension. And, with a
child's singleness of idea, he returned to the marriage.

"I'm sure she doesn't care about it," he said at last. "If I were King
I would not let her do it. And"--he sat very erect and swung his short
legs--"when I grow up, I shall fight for a navy, if I want one, and I
shall marry whoever I like."

At a quarter to four Olga Loschek was announced. She made the curtsy
inside the door that Palace ceremonial demanded and inquired for the
governess. Prince Ferdinand William Otto, who had risen at her entrance,
offered to see if she still slept.

"I think you are a very good doctor," he said, smiling, and went out to
Miss Braithwaite's sitting room.

It was then that Olga Loschek played the last card, and won. She moved
quickly to Nikky's side.

"I have a message for you," she said.

A light leaped into Nikky's eyes. "For me?"

"Do you know where my boudoir is?"

"I--yes, Countess."

"If you will go there at