were so good.

"I dare say," said St. George, examining the exquisitely fine cloth
whose shades were of curious depth and richness, "that this may be
regular Tyrian purple."

Amory waved his long sleeves.

"Stop," he languidly begged, "you make me feel like a golden text."

St. George went back to the row of open casements and resumed his
walk up and down before the windows that looked away to the huge
threatening bulk of Mount Khalak. Since the prince's announcement
that afternoon St. George had done little besides continuing that
walk. Now it wanted hardly half an hour to the momentous ceremony of
the evening, big with at least one of the dozen portents of which he
accused it.

"Amory," he burst out as he walked, "if you didn't know anything
about it, would you say that the prince could possibly have made her
consent to marry him?"

Amory, left in the middle of the great room, stood polishing his
pince-nez exactly as if he had been waiting at the end of
Chillingworth's desk of a bright, American morning.

"If I didn't know anything about it," he said cheerfully, "I should
say that he had. As it is, having this afternoon watched a certain
motor wear its way past me, I should say that nothing in Yaque is
more unlikely. And that's about as strong as you could put it."

"We don't know what the man may have threatened," said St. George
morosely, "he may have played upon her devotion to her father to
some ridiculous extent. He may have refused to land the submarine at
Yaque at all otherwise--"

St. George broke off suddenly.

"Toby!" he said.

Amory looked over and nodded. He had seen that look before on St.
George's face.

"She's not going to marry the prince," said St. George, "and if her
father is alive and in a hole, he's going to be pulled out. And
she's _not_ going to marry the prince."

"Why, no," assented Amory, "no."

He had guessed a good deal of the truth since he had been watching
St. George flee over seas upon a yacht, shod, so to speak, with
fire, and he had arrived at the suspicion that _The Aloha_ was
winged by little Loves and guided under water by plenty of blue and
green dragons. But he had not, until now, been thoroughly certain
that St. George's spirit of adventure had another name; and though
theoretically his sympathies leaped to the look in his friend's
eyes, yet he found himself wondering practically what effect romance
would be having upon their enterprise. After all, from a new