immediate million--liras, alas!
not pounds. An enormously rich Greek offered him that sum for the
fourteenth-century Castello di Miramare on a mountain all its own, some
miles from Rome. In consideration of a large sum paid to Paolo's younger
brother Carlo, the two Miramare princes would break the entail; and this
quick solution of our difficulties was to be a surprise for Mr.
Carstairs.

Paolo and I were married as hastily as such matters can be arranged
abroad, between persons of different nations; and it was true (as those
cynics outside the arbour said) that my soldier prince went back to the
Front an hour after the wedding. It was just after we were safely
spliced that Grandmother ceased to fight a temperature of a hundred and
three, and gave up to an attack of 'flu. She gave up quite quietly, for
she thought that, whatever happened, I would be rich, because she had
browbeaten lazy, unbusinesslike Paolo into making a will in my favour.
The one flaw in this calculation was, his concealing from her the fact
that the entail was not yet legally broken. No contract between him and
the Greek could be signed while the entail existed; therefore Paolo's
will gave me only his personal possessions. These were not much; for I
doubt if even the poor boy's uniforms were paid for. But I am thankful
that Grandmother died without realizing her failure; and I hope that her
spirit was far away before the ex-cowboy began making overtures.

If it had not been for Mrs. Carstairs' inspiration, I don't know what
would have become of me!

CHAPTER II

UP AND IN

You may remember what Jim Courtenaye said in the garden: that he would
probably have to support me.

Well, he dared to offer, through Mr. Carstairs, to do that very thing,
"for the family's sake." At least, he proposed to pay off all our debts
and allow me an income of four hundred a year, if it turned out that my
inheritance from Paolo was nil.

When Mr. Carstairs passed on the offer to me, as he was bound to do, I
said what I felt dear Grandmother would have wished me to say: "I'll see
him d--d first!" And I added, "I hope you'll repeat that to the
_Person_."

I think from later developments that Mr. Carstairs cannot have repeated
my reply verbatim. But I have not yet quite come to the part about those
developments. After the funeral, when I knew the worst about the entail,
and that Paolo's brother Carlo was breaking it wholly for his _own_
benefit, and not at a