pronoun before it) to the other lady!
He smiled as he reflected that the Westboro' express was destined to
arrive at the Abbey without either the royal guest or Mr. James
Thatcher Bulstrode. But more to the point, more instantly absorbing
was the fact, that within ten minutes the slow train from London to
Westboro' would arrive at Radleigh Bucks, the little station before
which he now stood, and from it, undoubtedly, would descend the real
Lord Gresthaven. If Jimmy needed encouragement in his self-imposed
role of Master of Fate, if he needed to forget the ardor and the
determination of the little Queen, if he needed to forget how, in
youth, he had cordially hated those interfering people who, on
horseback and in chaises, tore after flying lovers to waylay them at
Gretna Green--he found his stimulus in recalling that he was "the
King's friend."

"It's after all something of a distinction," he mused, entertained by
the idea, "a sort of royal _noblesse oblige_--and since the poor dear
herself has so made me out to be, given King the precedence, how could
I, in the cause of gallantry, have proceeded otherwise! It's this
diabolical little brown chrysanthemum," he mentally laid the fault
there. "It is evidently a telling mark. People in books are always
meeting unknowns who are to wear a red flower in the right lapel of the
coat".... and he had unintentionally gone over into a romance--and his
_triste_ part in it was that of an unsympathetic spoiler of a romance.

As after a prolonged parley with the station officials he walked
leisurely back to his carriage, his wallet grown very thin indeed and
his honest heart suffering many sincere pangs at the contemplation of
his conduct altogether, he argued: "She is absurdly young--she will,
after a little, go back to her allegiance (he put it so), and I don't
take much stock in that barbaric Gela anyway, he probably is a
Hungarian band-master or a handsome ticket-agent, a plebian creature
whose very remoteness from her own life has fascinated her."

Bulstrode, not quite sure just whom he was supposed to be by the train
people, found himself bowed and escorted back to the carriage which had
been turned and manipulated and side-tracked--reswitched and displaced,
till even its own locomotive and train of cars would have been at a
loss to find it. He had the sense of being a traitor, brute, imposter,
and Providence all in one--which combination of qualities was
sufficient to exp