to her--wall, palace, table--numbers--days of the
week--repeating the pronunciation with the earnestness of a diligent
young pupil, until she felt that her memory had all it could hold.
And distrust, always ready now like a prompter in the box, suggested
most upsettingly that perhaps he was not giving the right words. She
resolved to experiment upon Mariayah.

He reverted, with increasing emphasis, upon his desire to make her
happy in the palace, to surround her with whatever she desired, and
swiftly she availed herself of this second opening.

"Yes, indeed, there is something that would make me happier, if you
don't mind, please," she added with a droll assumption of meekness.
"You don't know how horrid it is for me to be caged in one room and
not be out of doors, and I would love to come down into the garden
when I want to. Won't you give me a key to that door? That is, if it
is always locked."

"Generally it is not," he said readily, "but now with the soldiers
about it is safer. You see, the soldiers can approach the garden
through the open banquet hall"--and he nodded to the colonnade
behind them--"and though it is forbidden, one cannot foretell their
obedience."

To one who knew those soldiers were chimerical acquiescence was
maddening.

"But, dear me, can't you have some one in the banquet hall to shoo
the soldiers away?" Arlee argued persuasively. "Since the rest of
the household has the court, it seems awfully selfish not to let the
ladies have the garden for their airing."

"It may be managed," he assented. "It has always been done, for the
garden is for the ladies. Whenever you wish to be in the garden you
have but to send word, and the household will remain in the court,
as is, indeed, the custom."

"It would not be so terrible, you know, if a gardener or a
donkey-boy did see my face!" laughed Arlee. "Plenty of them have had
that pleasure before this."

She saw that the young man's face changed. Every clear-cut line of
it was sharp with repugnance. "You need not remind me of that," he
said with muffled fierceness, staring down at his plate.

"The danger line!" she thought while shaking her head at him, with
the tense semblance of an amused little smile.... "You aren't the
least bit English," she rebuked, "and I thought you were."

"Not in that.... And some day England will see her folly."

"America is seeing her folly now," thought Arlee with secret
bitterness. But when she raised her eyes the