to answer
pleasantly enough:

"We have talked the matter over, Prince, and we have come to the
conclusion that your very kind invitation is really too good to be
refused. We know that we are incurring a debt that we shall not be able
to pay, but we are trusting to your generosity to let us off."

"On the contrary, my dear Professor," said Oscarovitch, without the
slightest attempt to conceal the pleasure that the acceptation gave him,
"it is yourself and Miss Marmion who have made me your debtor. In fact,
if you had not found yourselves able to come, I should have run the
_Grashna_ back to Cowes, gone up to London, plunged into a maelstroem of
dissipation, and probably ended by losing a great deal of money at Ascot
and Goodwood. Ah, Miss Marmion, good morning! How well the air of
Copenhagen seems to agree with you! The Professor has just gladdened my
soul by telling me that you have decided to take pity on my loneliness."

"Good morning, Prince!" she replied, putting her hand for a moment in
the one he held out. "Yes, we are coming, if you will have us. In fact,
I have just finished packing."

"Ah, excellent! Well now, since that is happily arranged, it would be a
pity to waste any of this lovely morning. The Sound is like a streak of
blue sky fallen from heaven. My gig is down at the jetty, and I have a
couple of my men here who will convoy your baggage down. If it is
packed, as you say, you need not trouble about it. You will find
everything safe on board."

"Thank you, Prince," said the Professor. "Then I will go and settle up
at the office while Niti puts her hat on. I will have the things sent
down, and we may as well walk to the jetty. It will do me good after
that big breakfast. Jenny had better get into a cab and go down with the
luggage."

When they reached the promenade along the Sound shore Oscarovitch
pointed to a beautifully-shaped, three-masted, two-funnelled white yacht
lying about five hundred yards out, and said:

"That is the _Grashna_, Miss Marmion. I hope you like the look of her."

"She is beautiful!" exclaimed Nitocris, recognising at once the vessel
which had met the Russian destroyer on the early morning of the 7th.
"She almost looks as if she could fly."

"So she can in a sense," laughed the Prince. "Come now, here is the gig.
We will get on board, and you shall see her go through her paces."

Neither she nor her father were strangers to yachts, but when they
mounted the bridge of th