stboro' Abbey.

But Carmen-Magda made no sign of recalcitrancy or regret that she was
_en route_ for her plebian Gela. She leaned over and picked up one of
the illustrated papers upon the seat and idly turned over the pages,
reverting finally back to the frontispiece where a colored photograph
displayed a young woman in hunting dress leaning on the arm of a
military-looking gentleman with black mustaches and swarthy skin. She
held it out to Bulstrode and said:

"It's a poor enough picture of me, but excellent, isn't it, of the
King?"

Bulstrode looked at it attentively with an inscrutable illumination on
his face.

"Yes, it is good of the King, very good indeed," he exclaimed with much
animation. It was strikingly so, he could with truth say it.

Gresthaven had proved himself to be the friend of the King par
excellence--the King seemed to have many friends---and the poor little
woman opposite--with her fetching bow of tulle and her mad confidence
in a stranger--her madder confidence in Lord Almouth Gresthaven--where
were _her_ friends? Jimmy leaned to her, and Mrs. Falconer could have
told that it was his voice of goodness that spoke, the voice "that
Jimmy seemed able to call at will from some wonderfully dear part of
his nature: it was for people in trouble, for people he was determined
to help in spite of themselves."

"Your Majesty has done me great honor," Bulstrode said. "You have said
I was the King's friend, I should like instead to be _your_ friend.
Women need friends ... even queens. Would it be too vast a presumption
if I should from henceforth feel myself to be...." He waited and
dared--"Carmen-Magda's friend?"

His innocent lese-majeste, coupled with the tone he used, reached the
woman in her---not to speak of his personal charm.

"Didn't I imply friendship when I chose you for this mission?" she said.

He winced. "Of course--but I mean from now on----"

She nodded sweetly. "_Cela va sans dire_, Gresthaven."

"Don't call me so," he interrupted, "say _friend_, to please me."

She laughed.

"You are too amusing. I will say it for you then in Poltavian. It's a
sacred word with us," and she called him friend in her own tongue with
the prettiest accent and a royal inclination of her head as if she
knighted him. It cut him and pleased him at once, and he hurried to
ask her:

"What would you think of Gresthaven if, instead of meeting you, as you
had arranged he should do--he should bet