rge rose abruptly. Amory was delicious, especially his drawl;
but there were times--

"Print it," he exclaimed, "you might as well try to print the
absolute."

Amory nodded.

"Oh, if you're going to be Neoplatonic," he said, "I'm off to hum an
Orphic hymn. Isn't it about time for the prince? I want to get out
with the camera, while the light is good."

The lateness of the hour of their arrival at the palace the evening
before had prevented the prince from receiving them, but he had sent
a most courteous message announcing that he himself would wait upon
them at a time which he appointed. While they were abiding his
coming, Rollo setting aside the dishes, Amory smoking, strolling up
and down, and examining the faint symbolic devices upon the walls'
tiling, St. George stood before one of the casements, and looked
over the aisles of flowering tree-tops to the grim, grey sides of
Mount Khalak, inscrutable, inaccessible, now not even hinting at the
walls and towers upon its secret summit. He was thinking how
heavenly curious it was that the most wonderful thing in his
commonplace world of New York--that is, his meeting with
Olivia--should, out here in this world of things wonderful beyond
all dream, still hold supreme its place as the sovereign wonder, the
sovereign delight.

"I dare say that means something," he said vaguely to himself, "and
I dare say all the people who are--in love--know what it does mean,"
and at this his spirit of adventure must have nodded at him, as if
it understood, too.

When, in a little time, Prince Tabnit appeared at the open door of
the "porch of light," it was as if he had parted from St. George in
McDougle Street but the night before. He greeted him with exquisite
cordiality and his welcome to Amory was like a welcome unfeigned. He
was clad in white of no remembered fashion, with the green gem
burning on his breast, but his manner was that of one perfectly
tailored and about the most cosmopolitan offices of modernity. One
might have told him one's most subtly humourous story and rested
certain of his smile.

"I wonder," he asked with engaging hesitation when he was seated,
"whether I may have a--cigarette? That is the name? Yes, a
cigarette. Tobacco is unknown in Yaque. We have invented no colonies
useful for the luxury. How can it be--forgive me--that your people,
who seem remote from poetry, should be the devisers and popularizers
of this so poetic pastime? To breathe in the green