"It's all very well, father," she concluded indignantly, "but in these
days you simply _can't_ keep that young man shut up for life just
because my great-grandfather chose to have his parents burnt alive--most
likely for no reason at all."

"_I_ don't want to keep him shut up, my dear. Never heard of him before.
I am quite willing to set him free if I am satisfied that it's the right
thing to do."

"Of course it's the right thing to do, Sidney," said his wife; "and,
what's more, it will be very popular. Just one of these gracious little
acts of clemency that go home to people's hearts. The Marshal quite
agreed with me about that."

"Oh, very well," said the King, "I'll send a herald over to tell him he
needn't consider himself a prisoner for the future."

"We owe him more than that, Sidney," said the Queen; "we ought at
_least_ to ask him over to lunch."

"Yes, we might do that," agreed Edna; "not that he's likely to accept."

"He cannot refuse a Royal command, my love," said her mother.

The Count did not refuse. On the appointed day Clarence and his sisters
saw from one of the windows a dilapidated sable coach drawn by eight
very ancient coal-black horses turn into the Courtyard.

"Only wants a few undertaker's men in weepers to be a really classy
funeral!" was the Crown Prince's tribute to this equipage. "'Come to
bury Caesar, not to praise him,' as Hamlet or some other Shakespearian
Johnny says, what?"

When the young Count von Rubenfresser was ushered into the Royal
presence his entrance made a slight sensation. Nobody had been prepared
for the fact that he was much nearer seven than six feet in height.
Otherwise there was nothing alarming about him; he wore his flaxen hair
rather long and arranged over the centre of his head in a sort of roll;
his china-blue eyes (which Ruby said afterwards was "plain all round,
like a fish's eyes") were singularly candid; he had a clear, fresh
complexion, full red lips, and magnificent teeth. He wore a rich suit of
sable as deep as his coach. "Magog in mourning," Clarence christened him
in an undertone.

It was curious that he should have inspired Daphne at first sight with a
vague repulsion, and that Ruby should have felt a similar antipathy,
though, with her, it took the form of a violent fit of the giggles--but
so it was. Daphne was thankful that she was able to remain at a distance
from him, as she was not lunching at the Royal Table.

He was shy at first, as mos