re not Lord
Gresthaven?"

"No," he said quietly, "no, I am an American, nothing more than a
friend and guest of the Duke of Westboro'. I tried over and over again
to tell you this, but you would not hear me and I finally accepted the
role you gave me with the firm intention of taking you with me to
Westboro' Castle. My name is James Thatcher Bulstrode, I am from
Boston, in the United States." Bulstrode thus tardily introduced
himself.

And Jimmy, not pretending ever to have counted greatly on the favor of
princes, was nevertheless taken aback. Not that he had any
preconceived notion of what Carmen-Magda would do--when she eventually
knew. He had been too absorbed in his mission, its entanglements, and
his climax. He may have been prepared for some exhibition of scorn,
but he more than likely looked for a social and commonplace ending to
their ride, but for what Carmen-Magda did he was entirely unprepared.

As if in his declaration of himself and his identity he had taken a
sponge and quite wiped himself off the slate, the Queen, after
speechlessly staring at him for a few moments, quietly removed her
attention from him altogether. She took from a little bag at her wrist
a rouge stick with which she carefully touched her lips; from a tiny
gold box she lightly dusted her cheeks with powder; she adjusted her
tulle bow and her veil and then sat serenely back waiting until the
train should arrive at her forced destination.

Although, one might say, unused to the manners of royalty, Jimmy was
dumbfounded; the beautiful woman in forest-brown clothes picked out
with hunting green had become as strange to him as in the first moment
when she attracted his attention some few miles beyond London. That
she should be angry at his interference he could admit, but that she
should not be grateful to be saved from her husband's wrath he did not
understand. Was he too plebeian for her to notice? He, of course, did
not speak to her again, nor did she break the singular silence, and for
some reason he did not even care to ask her forgiveness. Finally, he
decided that she was thinking solely of Gela, the man at the other end
of the route who would wait for her in vain, and when this sentimental
view of the case occurred to him, he would have felt _de trop_ had he
not seen how completely he was ignored.

They flashed past the last miles of wooded valley and hillside.
Westboro' was very soft in line and very mellow in the even