bird alighted among strange flowers; she met his eyes and dimpled
in frank delight. Mrs. Hastings sat erectly beside her, her
tortoise-rimmed glasses expressing bland approval. The improbability
of her surroundings had quite escaped her in her satisfied discovery
that the place was habitable. The lawyer, his thin lips parted, his
head thrown back so that his hair rested upon his coat collar,
remained standing, one long hand upon a coat lapel.

"Ah," said Miss Holland softly, "it _is_ an adventure, Aunt Dora."

St. George liked that. It irritated him, he had once admitted, to
see a woman live as if living were a matter of life and death. He
wished her to be alive to everything, but without suspiciously
scrutinizing details, like a census-taker. To appreciate did not
seem to him properly to mean to assess. Miss Holland, he would have
said, seemed to live by the beats of her heart and not by the waves
of her hair--but another proof, perhaps, of "if thou likest her
opinions thou wilt praise her virtues."

It was but a moment before the curtain was lifted, and there
approached a youth, apparently in the twenties, slender and
delicately formed as a woman, his dark face surmounted by a great
deal of snow-white hair. He was wearing garments of grey, cut in
unusual and graceful lines, and his throat was closely wound in
folds of soft white, fastened by a rectangular green jewel of
notable size and brilliance. His eyes, large and of exceeding beauty
and gentleness, were fixed upon St. George.

"Sir," said St. George, "we have been given this address as one
where we may be assisted in some inquiries of the utmost importance.
The name which we have is simply 'Tabnit.' Have I the honour--"

Their host bowed.

"I am Prince Tabnit," he said quietly.

St. George, filled with fresh amazement, gravely named himself and,
making presentation of the others, purposely omitted the name of
Miss Holland. However, hardly had he finished before their host
bowed before Miss Holland herself.

"And you," he said, "you to whom I owe an expiation which I can
never make,--do you know it is my servant who would have taken your
life?"

In the brief interval following this naive assertion, his guests
were not unnaturally speechless. Miss Holland, bending slightly
forward, looked at the prince breathlessly.

"I have suffered," he went on, "I have suffered indescribably since
that terrible morning when I missed her and understood her mission.