ess asked, "how much longer are
you going to stay in London?"

"I must go back to-morrow or the next day," the young man answered, a
little gloomily. "I sha'n't mind it half so much if you people only
make up your minds to pay me that visit."

The Princess motioned to him to draw his chair a little nearer to hers.

"If we take this tour at all," she remarked, "I should like to start
the day after to-morrow. There is a perfectly hideous function on
Thursday which I should so like to miss, and the stupidest dinner-party
on earth at night. Should you be home by then, do you think?"

"If there were any chance of your coming at all," the young man
answered eagerly, "I should leave by the first train to-morrow morning."

"I think," the Princess declared softly, "that we will come. Don't
think me rude if I say that we could not possibly be more bored than we
are in London. I do not want to take Jeanne to any of the country
house-parties we have been invited to. You know why. She really is such
a child, and I am afraid that if she gets any wrong ideas about things
she may want to go back to the convent. She has hinted at it more than
once already."

"There will be nothing of that sort at Salt-house," Cecil de la Borne
declared eagerly. "You see, I sha'n't have any guests at all except
just yourselves. Don't you think that would be best?"

"I do, indeed," the Princess assented, "and mind, you are not to make
any special preparations for us. For my part, I simply want a little
rest before we go abroad again, and we really want to come to you
feeling the same way that one leaves one's home for lodgings in a
farmhouse. You will understand this, won't you, Cecil?" she added
earnestly, laying her fingers upon his arm, "or we shall not come."

"It shall be just as you say," he answered. "As a matter of fact the
Red Hall is little more than a large farmhouse, and there is very
little preparation which I could make for you in a day or a day and a
half. You shall come and see how a poor English countryman lives, whose
lands and income have shrivelled up together. If you are dull you will
not blame me, I know, for all that you have to do is to go away."

The Princess rose and put out her hand.

"It is settled, then," she declared. "Thank you, dear Mr. Host, for
your very delightful dinner. Jeanne and I have to go on to Harlingham
House for an hour or two, the last of these terrible entertainments, I
am glad to say. Do send me a