eland made some reply which seemed to him both obvious and dull.
And hated himself because he found himself so unaccountably abashed,
realising that he was afraid of the opinions that this young girl
might entertain concerning him.

"I'm going," said the Princess. "_Au revoir_, dear; good-bye,
James----"

She looked at him keenly when he turned to face her, smiled, still
considering him as though she had unexpectedly discovered a new
feature in his expressive face.

Whatever it was she discovered seemed to make her smile a trifle more
mechanical; she turned slowly to Rue Carew, hesitated, then, nodding
a gay adieu, turned and left the room with Neeland at her elbow.

"I'll tuck you in," he began; but she said:

"Thanks; Marotte will do that." And left him at the door.

When the car had driven away down the rue Soleil d'Or, Neeland
returned to the little drawing-room where Rue was indulging Sandy with
small bits of sugar.

He took up cup and buttered _croissant_, and for a little while
nothing was said, except to Sandy who, upon invitation, repeated his
opinion of the Sultan and snapped in the offered emolument with
unsatiated satisfaction.

To Rue Carew as well as to Neeland there seemed to be a slight
constraint between them--something not entirely new to her since they
had met again after two years.

In the two years of her absence she had been very faithful to the
memory of his kindness; constant in the friendship which she had given
him unasked--given him first, she sometimes thought, when she was a
little child in a ragged pink frock, and he was a wonderful young man
who had taken the trouble to cross the pasture and warn her out of
range of the guns.

He had always held his unique place in her memory and in her innocent
affections; she had written to him again and again, in spite of his
evident lack of interest in the girl to whom he had been kind. Rare,
brief letters from him were read and reread, and laid away with her
best-loved treasures. And when the prospect of actually seeing him
again presented itself, she had been so frankly excited and happy that
the Princess Mistchenka could find in the girl's unfeigned delight
nothing except a young girl's touching and slightly amusing
hero-worship.

But with her first exclamation when she caught sight of him at the
terminal, something about her preconceived ideas of him, and her
memory of him, was suddenly and subtly altered, even while his name
fell f