ecisely,
has been doing for you all you so prettily mention. But it consists
simply in having conducted you to rest. You talk about ships, but
they're not the comparison. Your tossings are over--you're practically
IN port. The port," she concluded, "of the Golden Isles."

He looked about, to put himself more in relation with the place; then,
after an hesitation, seemed to speak certain words instead of certain
others. "Oh, I know where I AM--! I do decline to be left, but what I
came for, of course, was to thank you. If to-day has seemed, for the
first time, the end of preliminaries, I feel how little there would have
been any at all without you. The first were wholly yours."

"Well," said Mrs. Assingham, "they were remarkably easy. I've seen them,
I've HAD them," she smiled, "more difficult. Everything, you must feel,
went of itself. So, you must feel, everything still goes."

The Prince quickly agreed. "Oh, beautifully! But you had the
conception."

"Ah, Prince, so had you!"

He looked at her harder a moment. "You had it first. You had it most."

She returned his look as if it had made her wonder. "I LIKED it, if
that's what you mean. But you liked it surely yourself. I protest, that
I had easy work with you. I had only at last--when I thought it was
time--to speak for you."

"All that is quite true. But you're leaving me, all the same, you're
leaving me--you're washing your hands of me," he went on. "However, that
won't be easy; I won't BE left." And he had turned his eyes about again,
taking in the pretty room that she had just described as her final
refuge, the place of peace for a world-worn couple, to which she had
lately retired with "Bob." "I shall keep this spot in sight. Say what
you will, I shall need you. I'm not, you know," he declared, "going to
give you up for anybody."

"If you're afraid--which of course you're not--are you trying to make me
the same?" she asked after a moment.

He waited a minute too, then answered her with a question. "You say you
'liked' it, your undertaking to make my engagement possible. It remains
beautiful for me that you did; it's charming and unforgettable. But,
still more, it's mysterious and wonderful. WHY, you dear delightful
woman, did you like it?"

"I scarce know what to make," she said, "of such an inquiry. If you
haven't by this time found out yourself, what meaning can anything I say
have for you? Don't you really after all feel," she added while nothing
c