inly.

"You will be attended by an escort," the prince continued, "and
Balator, the commander of the guard, will receive you in the hall.
May the gods permit the possible."

He swept through the portico before them, and they followed dumbly.

The betrothal of the prince.

St. George heard, and his eager hope went down in foreboding. He
turned, hardly daring to read his own dread in the eyes of Amory.

Amory, as St. George had said, was delicious, especially his drawl;
but there were times--now, for example, when all that the eyes of
Amory expressed was what his lips framed, _sotto-voce_:

"An American heiress, betrothed to the prince of a cannibal island!
Wouldn't Chillingworth turn in his grave at his desk?"

CHAPTER X

TYRIAN PURPLE

The "porch of light" proved to be an especially fascinating place at
evening. Evening, which makes most places resemble their souls
instead of their bodies, had a grateful task in the beautiful room
whose spirit was always uppermost, and Evening moved softly in its
ivory depths, preluding for Sleep. Here, his lean, shadowed face all
anxiety, Rollo stood, holding at arm's length a parti-coloured robe
with floating scarfs.

"It seems to me, sir," he said doubtfully, "that this one would 'ave
done better. Beggin' your pardon, sir."

St. George shook his head distastefully.

"It doesn't matter," he said, and broke into a slow smile as he
looked at Amory. The robes which the prince had provided for the
evening were rather harder to become accustomed to than the notion
of intuitive knowledge.

"There's an air about this one though, sir," opined Rollo firmly,
"there's a cut--a sort of _way_ with the seams, so to speak, sir,
that the other can't touch. And cut is what counts, sir, cut counts
every time."

"Ah, yes, I dare say, Rollo," said St. George, "and as a judge of
'cut' I don't say you can be equaled. But I do say that in the
styles of Deuteronomy you aren't necessarily what you might call
up."

"Yes, sir," said Rollo, dropping his eyes, "but a well-dressed man
was a well-dressed man, sir, then _as_ now."

As a matter of fact the well-knit, athletic young figures looked
uncommonly well in the garments _a la mode_ in Yaque. One would have
said that if the garments followed Deuteronomy fashions they had at
all events been cut by the scissors of a court tailor to Louis XV.
The result was beautiful and bizarre, but it did not suggest
stageland because the colours