t guard of all. Good. But I am a King and I am a gentleman.
Good. I know that poor Corinne must go. She cannot stay here. That is
what you would say, and you are right. I know it. There are _les
convenances_. There is the charming Miss Donovan."

"That's it," said Donovan. "If it were simply a matter of Gorman and
me----I don't like saying these things--but----"

"But you are right," said the King. "Right as nails. Corinne must go.
But I go with her. To-morrow we depart, she and I. We take a boat. I
row with oars. We fly. The navy of Megalia pursues. It overtakes.
Good. We die. Perhaps the navy mistakes. It pursues by another route,
a way we have not gone. Good. We live. Either way you shut us. No. We
shut you. No. I have it. We are shut of us."

"That's rather a hopeless programme," said Gorman. "I don't suppose
you can row much."

"I cannot row at all," said the King.

"The navy is a pretty rotten-looking tub," said Gorman. "But it can
hardly help catching you. You won't even be out of sight before it has
steam up."

The King sat down, looking very miserable. He made no pretence of
liking the prospect before him.

"And Corinne," he murmured, "will be sick, as a dog is sick. She is
sick always at sea."

Gorman and Donovan felt sorry for him. Donovan was particularly
irritated at the situation in which he found himself.

"If it wasn't for my daughter----" he said. "But, damn it all, what
can I do?"

"I wonder," said Gorman, "if it would be possible to--well, shall we
say regularize the situation?"

He looked inquiringly at Donovan and then at the King. Donovan grasped
the idea first.

"That's it," he said. "Look here," he turned to the King. "Why the
hell don't you marry her at once? Then everything would be all right."

"Marry her!" said the King. "But that----Oh, damn! Oh Great Scott!
That is impossible. You do not understand."

"It's the right thing to do," said Donovan, "besides being the only
possible way out of the hole we are in. And I don't see the
impossibility. If you're holding back on account of any mediaeval
European notions about monarchs being a different kind of flesh and
blood from other people----"

"It is not that," said the King.

"If it is," said Donovan, "you may just go off in a boat and be
drowned. I shan't pity you."

"But it is not that." The King jumped about with excitement. "I am a
king, it is true. But I am a man of liberated soul. I say 'Kings, what
are kings?' Demo