in Delgratz until you are all settled down in it, nice
and comfy. Then I wend my lonely way back to Paris. By Jove! I shall be
something of a hero there--shine with reflected glory--eh, what?"

"I can't spare you for many a day yet, Berty," said Alec. "You can
hardly realize how good he has been, Joan," he continued. "I had a
fearfully hard time during the first week. More than once I wanted to
cut and run; but he kept me to it, chaffing me out of the dumps when
everything seemed to be going wrong."

Beaumanoir winked brazenly at her. "He talks that way now," he grinned.
"It's the kingly habit, I understand. Alec has got it down to a fine
point. Make every fellow believe that he is It, and there you are, you
know."

There was some substratum of sense in Beaumanoir's chaffing. Alec was
taking his kingship very seriously, and Joan was hard pressed to bridge
the gulf that lay between Paris and Delgratz.

At first she found it almost impossible to realize that Alec had been in
harness little more than a month. His talk was replete with local
knowledge; he seemed to understand the people and their ways so
thoroughly. He was versed even in the peculiarities of their methods of
tillage, was able to explain distinctions of costume and racial
appearance, and might have spent his life in studying all their customs
and folklore.

Fortunately, Joan herself was gifted with quick perception and a
retentive memory. After a few days' residence in the White City she
began to assimilate the rills of information that trickled in upon her
from so many sources, and the feeling of bewildered surprise with which
she regarded her lover's attainments during the first hours of real
intimacy was soon replaced by an active sympathy and fuller
understanding. She was helped in this by the King's mother, since there
could be no doubt that Princess Delgrado took her absolutely to her
heart.

Prince Michael, who was completely eclipsed not only by his son's
extraordinary versatility in all public affairs but by lack of that
opulent setting for his peculiar qualities which Paris alone could
supply, seemed to accept the inevitable. He tolerated Joan, openly
praised her beauty, and became resigned in a more or less patronizing
way to the minor distractions of local life.

Felix and Joan gave up their mornings to art. The Pole discovered some
quaint old frescoes in the cathedral which attracted him by their
remarkable freedom of design and simpli