n. He looked after her helplessly. He
only knew that there was a great ball of fire in his breast, and that
the pain of it was now unmixed.

V

Maria Dolores tripped into Frau Brandt's sitting-room, merrily singing a
snatch of song.

"_Gardez vous d'etre severe
Quand on vous park d'amour_,"

she carolled. Then she stopped singing, and blithely laughed.

Frau Brandt raised her good brown face from her knitting, and her good
brown eyes looked anxiously upwards, slantwise over her
tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles.

"What is the matter now?" she asked. "What has happened to vex you now?"

"To vex me!" cried Maria Dolores, in apparent astonishment. "Wasn't I
singing aloud from sheer exuberance of high spirits?"

"No," said Frau Brandt, with a very positive shake of her white-capped
head. "You were singing to conceal your low spirits. What has
happened?"

"Ah, well, then, if you know so much and must know all," said Maria
Dolores, "I've just proposed to the man I'm in love with, and been sent
about my business."

"What do you mean?" asked Frau Brandt, phlegmatic. "What nonsense is
this?"

"I mean my cobbler's son," Maria Dolores answered. "I, a Princess of the
Empire, humbly offered him, a cobbler's son, my hand, heart, and
fortune,--and the graceless man rejected them with scorn."

"That is a likely story," said Frau Brandt, wagging her chin. Her blunt
brown fingers returned to their occupation. "I see your Serene Highness
offering her hand."

"At all events, will you kindly tell Josephine to pack our boxes.
To-morrow we'll be flitting," her Serene Highness in a casual way
announced.

"What say you?" cried Frau Brandt, dropping her knitting into her lap.

"Yes--to Mischenau, to my brother," the Princess pursued. "Of course
you'll have to come with us, poor dear. You can't let me travel alone
with Josephine."

"No," said Frau Brandt. "I will go with you."

"And you can remain for my wedding," Maria Dolores added. "I am going
home to meet my brother's wishes, and to marry my second cousin, the
high and mighty Maximilian, Prince of Zelt-Zelt."

"Herr Gott!" said Frau Brandt, glancing with devotion at the ceiling.

VI

John, wild-eyed, was still where she had left him, in the avenue,
savouring and resavouring his woe. "If only," he brooded, "she were of
one's own rank in the world, then her wealth might perhaps not be such
an absolutely hopeless impediment as it is. But to mar