hen I was a boy I remember thinking how magnificent
they were. What an eye opener it must have been for Alec when he
realized that he had given up Paris--for this!" and he waved a
deprecating hand toward the unkempt houses, yellow washed and dingy; for
the White City, though white when seen from a distance, turns out to be
an unhealthy looking saffron at close quarters. The Princess cared
nothing for the squalor of the town. She was thinking of her son.

"I wish we had told Alec we were coming, Michael," she said. "Now that
we are here, the reasons you urged for secrecy seem to be less
convincing than ever."

"Alec would have telegraphed his prompt advice to remain where we were."

"Perhaps----"

"Perhaps you will allow me to decide what is best to be done, Marie. Our
affairs had reached a crisis. So long as there was a chance of my
becoming King I was able to finance myself. Now that Alec is firmly
established, and filling empty heads with all this nonsense as to
retrenchment and economical administration, every creditor I had in the
world is pestering me. You cannot realize the annoyance to which I have
been subjected during the last fortnight. Life was becoming intolerable,
just because Alec was talking galimatias to a number of irresponsible
journalists."

"Why not write and tell him our troubles? He would have helped us, I am
sure. And that which you call rubbish seems to have caught the ear of
all Europe. Even 'The Journal des Debats' published a most eulogistic
article about him last week."

"Poof!" snorted Monseigneur. "Those Paris rags pander to republicanism.
Every word, every act, of an impetuous youngster like Alec is twisted
into an argument against the older monarchies. Give an eye to the mean
looking building on the right. That is the Chamber of Deputies. Alec
made the speech there that won him a throne. Who would have believed
it? Just a few words, and he became King!"

Something in Prince Michael's tone caused his wife to look at him
sharply. "You are not growing envious, Michael?" she asked.

"No; but I was a fool."

"Because I shall keep you to our compact," she said, with a firmness of
manner that surprised the pompous little man by her side. He had been
answered in that way so seldom during their married life that the
novelty was displeasing.

"Ah, bah! what are you saying?" he cried. He stifled the next words on
his lips; for the horse passed under an arch, and not even the studied
rep