el in state carriages and special trains. Then he had
come to scent danger and had grown wary; trying to put her off with
generalities, such as the inability of human beings to fly from their
own selves, and irrelevancies such as the amount of poverty and
wretchedness to be observed in the east of London; refusing to discuss
France, which she was always getting to as the first step towards
England, except in as far as it was a rebellious country that didn't
like kings; pointing out with no little temper that she had already
seen England; and finishing by inquiring very snappily when her Grand
Ducal Highness intended to go on with her drawing.

Now what Priscilla had seen of England had been the insides of
Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle; of all insides surely the most
august. To and from these she had been conveyed in closed carriages
and royal trains, and there was so close a family likeness between
them and Kunitz that to her extreme discomfort she had felt herself
completely at home. Even the presence of the Countess Disthal had not
been wanting. She therefore regarded this as not seeing England at
all, and said so. Fritzing remarked tartly that it was a way of seeing
it most English people would envy her; and she was so unable to
believe him that she said Nonsense.

But lately her desires had taken definite shape so rapidly that he had
come to dread the very word hill and turn cold at the name of England.
He was being torn in different directions; for he was, you see, still
trying to do what other people had decided was his duty, and till a
man gives up doing that he will certainly be torn. How great would be
the temptation to pause here and consider the mangled state of such a
man, the wounds and weakness he will suffer from, and how his soul
will have to limp through life, if it were not that I must get on with
Priscilla.

One day, after many weeks of edging nearer to it, of going all round
it yet never quite touching it, she took a deep breath and told him
she had determined to run away. She added an order that he was to help
her. With her most grand ducal air she merely informed, ordered, and
forbade. What she forbade, of course, was the betrayal of her plans.
"You may choose," she said, "between the Grand Duke and myself. If you
tell him, I have done with you for ever."

Of course he chose Priscilla.

His agonies now were very great. Those last lacerations of conscience
were terrific. Then, after nig