olved difficult problems of
administration, the eyes through which he had once beheld the glories of
his court, the lips that had kissed his long dead queen, smiled with
rapture upon his first-born and uttered the words that had made men call
him wise. It was not strange--not unbelievable. It was sane and true. He
was still a king.

He reached down and laid a tender, a fraternal hand upon the brow. The
contact strengthened him, as always. He could believe anything wise and
good of himself. He could be a true mate to that bewildering flapper,
full of understanding kindness. He saw little intimate moments of their
life together, her perplexities over fumed oak and patent tubs and
marketing for pure food; always her terrific earnestness. Now and then
he would laugh at that, but then she would laugh too; sometimes the
flapper seemed to show, with an engaging little sense of shame, that she
just perfectly knew how funny she was.

But she was staunch; she had perfectly well known the very first moment
she saw him. And she had never spoiled it all, like that other one in
Chicago, by asking him if he was fond of Nature and Good Music and such
things. The flapper was capable but quiet. With his hand still upon
Ram-tah's brow in that half-timid, strange caress, he was flooded with a
sudden new gladness about the flapper. She was _dear_, if you came right
down to it. And Ram-tah had brought her to him. He erected himself to
look down once more. They _knew_, those two selves; understood each
other and life.

It occurred to him for the first time that Ram-tah, too, must have liked
dogs, must have been inexpressibly moved by the chained souls that were
always trying to speak from their brown eyes. He looked over to Nap, who
fiercely battled with a sofa cushion, and was now disembowelling it
through a rent in the cover. He wondered what Ram-tah's favourite dog
had been like.

He went back to the bedroom to finish his packing. Ram-tah could lie
until the moment came to lock him again in the closet, to leave him once
more in a seclusion to which he had long been accustomed.

He worked leisurely, stowing those almost advanced garments so that they
should show as few wrinkles as possible after their confinement.
Occasionally Nap diverted his thoughts by some louder growl than usual
in the outer room, or by some noisier scramble.

The trunk was packed and locked for the final time. Thrice had it been
unlocked and opened to receive s