into her heart. If she could help
this people to the ruler they needed most; if she could somehow turn the
scale, so delicately balanced! There would be a task worth doing; an
achievement to be proud of all her life! And she trembled a little at
the thought that to her, Susie Rushford, fate had given such an
opportunity!

But Markeld, apparently, had had enough of high politics, or perhaps he
found it difficult to keep his mind on them with Susie's dark eyes
looking up at him. He was no novice in womankind; he had known many,
high and low; but there was in his companion something different,
something appealing, something fresh, invigorating, which he had felt
from the first, in a vague way, without quite understanding. Princes may
be outspoken when they please, and he was so at this moment.

"I was glad of to-day's meeting not only that I might apologise," he
said, with a calmness which rather took his companion's breath away,
"but because you interested me. I have heard much of American women, but
all that I have heretofore been privileged to meet seemed to me to
resent being called Americans. You and your sister, on the other hand,
appear to be rather proud of it."

"I don't know whether that is intended as a compliment or the reverse,"
said Susie, "but it is undoubtedly true."

"It was that which interested me," he went on. "It indicated such an
unspoiled point of view--a freshness which I fear the Old World is
losing."

"Thank you," retorted Susie, gasping a little. "You have honoured us, I
see, with a very careful study. I can respond by saying that there is in
your manner a certain freshness which I do not like," and she shot him a
fiery glance. At the moment, he was rather too evidently the Prince.

"I am sorry you find me displeasing," he said, looking at her gravely.
Perhaps she was, at the moment, just the merest shade too evidently the
American girl. "I hope the impression is one which will change when you
know me better."

"Am I to have that pleasure?"

"I intend to ask your father if I may call upon you."

Susie gasped again. She felt that she was being swept beyond her depth
by a current which she was powerless to resist; that she was beating
with bare hands against a wall of incredible height and thickness--the
wall of Old World convention, of class imperturbability. And she felt a
little frightened, for almost the first time in her life.

"Do," she said faintly, realising that her companion