the presumption to
expect it."

"She didn't, Mater. She said I'd better ask you first."

"Then it seems she has a better sense of her position than you have of
yours, Clarence. I'm told you have been seen walking about with a
disgusting pipe in your mouth, and that several people were remarking on
it. Now you are actually proposing to make yourself conspicuous by
dancing at a State Ball with your sister's companion! I have always
credited you with being a man of the world--but if _this_ is the way you
are going on----!"

He felt the sting of so unwonted a rebuke. "I daresay you're right,
Mater," he acknowledged. "I'll be more careful after this."

"I hope you will, I'm sure. As Crown Prince you mustn't _think_ of any
partner under the rank of Baroness. Ask one of the Princesses first, or
you'll give _more_ offence."

"Right-oh!" was all he said, and, feeling that it would be awkward to
make any explanation or excuses to Daphne, he solved the difficulty by
avoiding her for the rest of the evening.

Princess Goldernenfingerleinigen, a prepossessing but not very
forthcoming damsel, enjoyed the distinction of being commanded by the
Crown Prince as his first partner.

He had had no experience in conversing with Princesses, and she did not
exert herself either to put him more at his ease or prevent him from
losing himself frequently in the mazes of the dance. Once or twice he
was oppressed by a painful suspicion that he had seen her making a
little grimace of self-pity at the Countess Gaensehirtin. But elaborately
engraved mirrors are not very trustworthy, and he might have been
mistaken. Still, he was thankful when the dance, in which he was
conscious of having done himself so little credit, came to an end.

"Edna, old girl," he remarked subsequently to the Princess Royal, "I
call this a rotten ball. Can't stick dancing with any more of these
Princesses!"

Princess Edna, it appeared, had been no more favourably impressed by the
Courtiers.

"They've simply _no_ conversation," she complained, "and no ideas about
any serious subjects!"

"No, _I_'ve noticed that," he said; "and they think they're the only
people who can dance! I tell you what--you and I'll show 'em how we do
the Tango. That'll make 'em open their eyes!"

It did. As has already been said, both he and Edna, as persons who could
not afford to be out of the movement, had taken lessons that winter in
the recent importation from dubious Argentine danci