n. Well,
well!" and she suddenly lowered her voice to a passionate whisper. "Why,
oh, why did you not take your fortunes in your hands at Peri?"

Wogan leaned forward to her. "Do you know so much?"

She answered him quickly. "I will never forgive you. Yes, I know." She
forced her lips into a smile. "I suppose you are content. You have your
black horse."

"You know of the horse, too," said Wogan, colouring to the edge of his
peruke. "You know I have no further use for it."

"Say that again, and I will beg it of you."

"Nay, it is yours, then. I will send him after you to Rome."

"Will you?" said Maria Vittoria. "Why, then, I accept. There's my
hand;" and she thrust it through the window to him. "If ever you come to
Rome, the Caprara Palace stands where it did at your last visit. I do
not say you will be welcome. No, I do not forgive you, but you may come.
Having your horse, I could hardly bar the door against you. So you may
come."

Wogan raised her hand to his lips.

"Aye," said she, with a touch of bitterness, "kiss my hand. You have had
your way. Here are two people crossmated, and two others not mated at
all. You have made four people entirely unhappy, and a kiss on the glove
sets all right."

"Nay, not four," protested Wogan.

"Your manners," she continued remorselessly, ticking off the names upon
her fingers, "will hinder you from telling me to my face the King is
happy. And the Princess?"

"She was born to be a queen," replied Wogan, stubbornly. "Happiness,
mademoiselle! It does not come by the striving after it. That's the
royal road to miss it. You may build up your house of happiness with all
your care through years, and you will find you have only built it up to
draw down the blinds and hang out the hatchment above the door, for the
tenant to inhabit it is dead."

Maria Vittoria listened very seriously till he came to the end. Then she
made a pouting grimace. "That is very fine, moral, and poetical. Your
Princess was born to be a queen. But what if her throne is set up only
in your city of dreams? Well, it is some consolation to know that you
are one of the four."

"Nay, I will make a shift not to plague myself upon the way the world
treats you."

"Ah, but because it treats you well," cried she. "There will be work for
you, hurryings to and fro, the opportunities of excelling, nights in the
saddle, and perhaps again the quick red life of battlefields. It is well
with you, but what of me, Mr.