e. These
were the women of the land which "no one can define or remember."
And yet, as he watched her now, St. George was gloriously conscious
that Olivia not only held her own among them, but that in some charm
of vividness and of _knowledge of laughter_, she transcended them
all.

A ripple of surprise had gone round the room. For all the air of the
ultimate about the island-women, St. George doubted whether ever in
the three thousand years of Yaque's history a woman had raised her
voice from that throne upon a like occasion. And such a tender,
beguiling, cajoling little voice it was. A voice that held little
remarques upon whatever it had just said, and that made one
breathless to know what would come next.

"Bully!" breathed Amory, his eyes shining behind his pince-nez.

Prince Tabnit hesitated.

"If the princess wishes to speak with us--" he began, and Olivia
made a charming gesture of dissent, and all the jewels in her hair
and upon her white throat caught the light and were set glittering.

"No," she said gently, "no, your Highness. I wish to speak in the
presence of my people."

She gave the "my" no undue value, yet it fell from her lips with
delicious audacity.

"Indeed," she said, "I think, your Highness, that I will speak to my
people myself."

CHAPTER XI

THE END OF THE EVENING

The Hall of Kings was very still as Olivia rose. She stood with one
hand touching her veil's hem, the other resting on the low, carved
arm of the throne, and at the coming and going of her breath her
jewels made the light lambent with the indeterminate colours of
those strange, joyous banners floating far above her head.

Her voice was very sweet and a little tremulous--and it is the very
grace of a woman's courage that her voice tremble never so slightly.
It seemed to St. George that he loved her a thousand times the more
for that mere persuasive wavering of her words. And, while he
listened to what he felt to be the prelude of her message, it seemed
to him that he loved her another thousand times the more--what
heavenly ease there is in this arithmetic of love--for the tender
meaning which, upon her lips, her father's name took on. When,
speaking with simplicity and directness of the subject that lay
uppermost in the minds of them all, she asked their utmost endeavour
in their common grief, it was clear that what she said transcended
whatever phenomena of mere experience lay between her and those who
heard h