ry gently:

"Will it surprise you to know that you are now a princess?"

"A--_what?_" she asked sharply.

"A princess." He smiled benignly on her, and, still beaming, struck a not
ungraceful attitude.

"I," he said, "am the Crown Prince of Rumtifoo."

She stared at him without a word; gradually he lost countenance; a vague
misgiving stirred within him that he had rather overdone the thing.

"Of course," he began cheerfully, "I am an exile in disguise--er--
disinherited and all that, you know."

She continued to stare at him.

"Matters of state--er--revolution--and that sort of thing," he mumbled,
eying her; "but I thought it might gratify you to know that I am Prince
George of Rumtifoo----"

"_What!_"

The silence was deadly.

"Do you know," she said deliberately, "that I believe you think I am
mentally unsound. _Do_ you?"

"I--you--" he began to stutter fearfully.

"_Do_ you?"

"W-well, either you or I----"

"Nonsense! I _thought_ that marriage ceremony was a miserably inadequate
affair!... And I am hurt--grieved--amazed that you should do such a--a
cowardly----"

"What!" he exclaimed, stung to the quick.

"Yes, it is cowardly to deceive a woman."

"I meant it kindly--supposing----"

"That I am mentally unsound? Why do you suppose that?"

"Because--Good Heavens--because in this century, and in this city, people
who never before saw one another don't begin to talk of marrying----"

"I explained to you"--she was half crying now, and her voice broke
deliciously--"I told you what I'd done, didn't I?"

"You said you had got a spark," he admitted, utterly bewildered by her
tears. "Don't cry--please don't. Something is all wrong here--there is
some terrible misunderstanding. If you will only explain it to me----"

She dried her eyes mechanically: "Come here," she said. "I don't believe
I did explain it clearly."

And, very carefully, very minutely, she began to tell him about the
psychic waves, and the instrument, and the new company formed to exploit
it on a commercial basis.

She told him what had happened that morning to her; how her disobedience
had cost her so much misery. She informed him about her father, and that
florid and rotund gentleman's choleric character.

"If you are here when I tell him I'm married," she said, "he will
probably frighten you to death; and that's one of the reasons why I wish
to get it over and get you safely away before he returns. As for me, now
that I know