up pretty much all night. The princess wasn't there, of course, and I
could convince them that I was right. If she had been, I don't believe
I could have held out. But they had to listen to reason, and I got away
between two days."

"But why didn't you marry her?"

"Well, for one thing, as I told you, I thought I ought to consider
her family. Then there was a good fellow, the crown-prince of
Saxe-Wolfenhutten, who was dead in love with her, and was engaged to her
before I turned up. I had been at school with him, and I felt awfully
sorry for him; and I thought I ought to sacrifice myself a little to
him. But I suppose the thing that influenced me most was finding out
that if I married the princess I should have to give up my American
citizenship and become her subject."

"Well?" Boyne panted.

"Well, would you have done it?"

"Couldn't you have got along without doing that?"

"That was the only thing I couldn't get around, somehow. So I left."

"And the princess, did she--die?"

"It takes a good deal more than that to kill a fifteen-year-old
princess," said Trannel, and he gave a harsh laugh. "She married
Saxe-Wolfenhutten." Boyne was silent. "Now, I don't want you to speak
of this till after I leave Scheveningen--especially to Miss Lottie. You
know how girls are, and I think Miss Lottie is waiting to get a bind
on me, anyway. If she heard how I was cut out of my chance with that
princess she'd never let me believe I gave her up of my own free will?"

"NO, no; I won't tell her."

Boyne remained in a silent rapture, and he did not notice they were no
longer following the rest of their party in the other carriage. This had
turned down a corner, at which Mr. Breckon, sitting on the front seat,
had risen and beckoned their driver to follow, but their driver, who
appeared afterwards to have not too much a head of his own, or no head
at all, had continued straight on, in the rear of a tram-car, which was
slowly finding its way through the momently thickening crowd. Boyne was
first aware that it was a humorous crowd when, at a turn of the street,
their equipage was greeted with ironical cheers by a group of gay young
Dutchmen on the sidewalk. Then he saw that the sidewalks were packed
with people, who spread into the street almost to the tram, and that the
house fronts were dotted with smiling Dutch faces, the faces of pretty
Dutch girls, who seemed to share the amusement of the young fellows
below.

Trannel la