k for her."

IV

Could the King only have known it, Max had already found his choice
nearer home. His domestic arrangements having been temporarily disturbed
by a certain lady's departure to visit her son on his estates, he had
gone off on a spurt of social curiosity to inspect the slums of his
father's capital, and on the third day of his investigation had spied,
under a nursing sister's habit, and above a gentle breast bearing an
ivory cross, the face of his dreams. Having taken scientific steps to
discover whether that particular garb entailed celibate vows, and
learning that it did not, he had industriously run its wearer to sainted
earth--had, that is to say, pursued her to a top-floor tenement and
there found her upon her knees with sanitary zeal scrubbing dirt from
the boards of poverty; and poverty upon its bed whimpering with rage and
feebly cursing her for thus coming to disturb its peace. Thus they had
met, and very promptly and practically had the wearer of the habit made
him pay the price for his intrusion by setting him there and then to
work of a kind he had never tackled before.

Who she was, and all the sacred dance that she led him on holy feet,
before she gave him that reward which was his due, will be told in the
later pages of this history. For the present Max had hardly any idea how
pure and deep a Jordan he was about to be dipped in, or how thorough a
scrubbing he himself was to receive. His voice was still like the
rollings of Abana and Pharpar, when he came on this next evening to
discourse up-to-date wisdom in his father's ears; not a hair of his
well-groomed head showed the ruffling of perturbed thoughts within, nor
were his self-confidence and easy satisfaction in the moral and mental
liberties wherein he ranged at large in any way diminished or disturbed.

When they had settled down to their talk, the King confidentially
broached the proposed visit of the Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser
and its intended significance. Max did not seem particularly impressed.
"What does Charlotte say about it?" he inquired casually.

"Charlotte does not say anything. How should she? She does not yet
know."

Max smiled. "It will be time, then, to talk about it when she does."

"But there is really nobody else; and Charlotte must marry somebody."

"Has she said so?" inquired Max. "My own impression is that she will
have to get through at least one good healthy love affair of her own
before she se