e Prince,
will I bring two from the lowlands who call me Queen, and we
will see which is the staunchest breed. Till then farewell.'

The trumpets blared out, the Queens rose, and the great assembly
broke up in murmuring confusion, and for myself I went home with
a heavy heart foreseeing civil war.

After this there was quiet for a few weeks. Curtis and the Queen
did not often meet, and exercised the utmost caution not to allow
the true relation in which they stood to each other to leak out;
but do what they would, rumours as hard to trace as a buzzing
fly in a dark room, and yet quite as audible, began to hum
round and round, and at last to settle on her throne.

CHAPTER XVII
THE STORM BREAKS

And now it was that the trouble which at first had been but a
cloud as large as a man's hand began to loom very black and big
upon our horizon, namely, Sorais' preference for Sir Henry.
I saw the storm drawing nearer and nearer; and so, poor fellow,
did he. The affection of so lovely and highly-placed a woman
was not a thing that could in a general way be considered a calamity
by any man, but, situated as Curtis was, it was a grievous burden
to bear.

To begin with, Nyleptha, though altogether charming, was, it must
be admitted, of a rather jealous disposition, and was sometimes
apt to visit on her lover's head her indignation at the marks
of what Alphonse would have called the 'distinguished consideration'
with which her royal sister favoured him. Then the enforced
secrecy of his relation to Nyleptha prevented Curtis from taking
some opportunity of putting a stop, or trying to put a stop,
to this false condition of affairs, by telling Sorais, in a casual
but confidential way, that he was going to marry her sister.
A third sting in Sir Henry's honey was that he knew that Good
was honestly and sincerely attached to the ominous-looking but
most attractive Lady of the Night. Indeed, poor Bougwan was
wasting himself to a shadow of his fat and jolly self about her,
his face getting so thin that his eyeglass would scarcely stick
in it; while she, with a sort of careless coquetry, just gave
him encouragement enough to keep him going, thinking, no doubt,
that he might be useful as a stalking-horse. I tried to give
him a hint, in as delicate a way as I could, but he flew into
a huff and would not listen to me, so I was determined to let
ill along, for fear of making it worse. Poor Good, he really
was very ludicro