me a fairy-story," she commanded
with almost childish eagerness. "Or have you Americans foresworn fairies
for Edisons?"

"I know one who has not," he answered, falling soothingly into her mood.
"He has seen the Queen, Titania."

"Well, tell me about her. Oh, I do hope that she was beautiful," and she
dimpled bewitchingly.

"She was--fairy queens are always beautiful, and sometimes kind. Once
upon a time--all fairy-stories have happened once upon a time--there was
a man."

"Yes," she interrupted, bending expectantly toward him.

"He was poor," he continued quietly.

"Oh," she exclaimed in disappointment.

Carter shook his head understandingly. "He was an artist. He hoped one
day to be called a genius. The fairy queen knew this was not to be so
she made him a king and gave him--part of her kingdom." He paused to
find her looking down, a shade of sadness on her face. Noticing his
pause she looked up.

"Well?" she asked.

"There was another man," he continued. "This other man was not poor. He
was not an artist, but to-night he saw the fairy queen in all her regal
splendor. It made him think that all the flowers in all the worlds
condensed into one small but perfect bloom were not so sweet as she. So
the other man more than ever wished to rule in her fairyland--with her."

"No, no," she cried, detecting the prohibited note, "you must not speak
so." Her hands crumpled the morsel of cobweb and lace she had for
handkerchief. Carried away with her proximity, however, he would not now
be denied.

"This is but a fairy-story, Duchess. Oh, Fairy Queen, could you not find
a kingdom for the other man in fairyland--a kingdom with you as Queen?"

His naked soul was laying pleading hands upon her quivering heart. She
turned away, unable to withstand the suppliance of his eyes.

"You do not know what you ask," she whispered hoarsely. Then vehemently
spurring her resolve into a gallop, she added, "When the King is crowned
in Schallberg, I become his wife."

"Suppose he isn't," he urged doggedly.

"Oh, no," she cried brokenly, "don't make me a traitor to my country's
hopes. Don't make me wish for failure."

Unwittingly her words confessed her love for Carter. Grimly forcing her
weakness back into her secret heart, she turned a calm front to him once
again.

"Enough of fairy-stories, Major Carter," she said. "We live in a
workaday world where the 'little people' have no place. All of us have
our duties to perform. If