s almost Royal, she herself is an aristocrat
to the backbone. It is a class against which you have declared war. How
can you possibly come together on common ground?"

Brott was silent for a moment. Looking at him steadily the Prince was
surprised at the change in the man's appearance. His cheeks seemed
blanched and his skin drawn. He had lost flesh, his eyes were hollow,
and he frequently betrayed in small mannerisms a nervousness wholly new
and unfamiliar to him.

"You speak as a man of sense, Prince," he said after a while. "You are
absolutely correct. This matter has caused me a great deal of anxious
thought. To falter at this moment is to lose, politically, all that I
have worked for all my life. It is to lose the confidence of the
people who have trusted me. It is a betrayal, the thought of which is
a constant shame to me. But, on the other hand, Lucille is the dearest
thing to me in life."

The Prince's expression was wholly sympathetic. The derision which
lurked behind he kept wholly concealed. A strong man so abjectly in the
toils, and he to be chosen for his confidant! It was melodrama with a
dash of humour.

"If I am to help you," the Prince said, "I must know everything. Have
you made any proposals to Lucille? In plain words, how much of your
political future are you disposed to sacrifice?"

"All!" Brott said hoarsely. "All for a certainty of her. Not one jot
without."

"And she?"

Brott sprang to his feet, white and nervous.

"It is where I am at fault," he exclaimed. "It is why I have asked for
your advice, your help perhaps. I do not find it easy to understand
Lucille. Perhaps it is because I am not well versed in the ways of her
sex. I find her elusive. She will give me no promise. Before I went
to Glasgow I talked with her. If she would have married me then my
political career was over--thrown on one side like an old garment. But
she would give me no promise. In everything save the spoken words I
crave she has promised me her love. Again there comes a climax. In a few
hours I must make my final choice. I must decline to join Letheringham,
in which case the King must send for me, or accept office with him,
and throw away the one great chance of this generation. Letheringham's
Cabinet, of course, would be a moderate Liberal one, a paragon of milk
and water in effectiveness. If I go in alone we make history. The moment
of issue has come. And, Prince, although I have pleaded with all the
force an