eps his marriage a
secret, in which case he is a sneak and not worth a second thought from
any decent woman, or else, if she had known all along that he was
married, she doesn't get to liking him that way. Don't you see?"

She looked away, down the stream for a moment with inscrutable eyes,
and then broke into an unexpected laugh, rising at the same time and
putting on her hat. "I see, yes, I see," she said. "It is as you say,
quite simple. And now let us go to visit the rest of the park."

VI

The next excursion was to be their last, and Miss Midland had suggested
a return to Versailles to see the park in its spring glory. They
lunched in a little inclosure, rosy with the pink and white magnolia
blossoms, where the uncut grass was already ankle-deep and the
rose-bushes almost hid the gray stone wall with the feathery abundance
of their first pale green leaves. From a remark of the girl's that
perhaps this was the very spot where Marie Antoinette had once gathered
about her gay court of pseudo-milkmaids, they fell into a discussion of
that queen's pretty pastoral fancy. Harrison showed an unexpected
sympathy with the futile, tragic little merrymaker.

"I expect she got sick and tired of being treated like a rich, great
lady, and wanted to see what it would feel like to be a human being.
The king is always disguising himself as a goat-herd to make sure he
can be loved for his own sake."

"But those stories are all so monotonous!" she said impatiently. "The
king always is made to find out that the shepherdess does love him for
his own sake. What would happen if she wouldn't look at him?"

Harrison laughed, "Well, by George, I never thought of that. I should
say if he cared enough about her to want his own way, he'd better get
off his high-horse and say, 'Look-y-here, I'm not the common ordinary
mutt I look. I'm the king in disguise. _Now_ will you have me?"

Miss Midland looked at him hard. "Do you think it likely the girl would
have him then?"

"Don't you?" he said, still laughing, and tucking away the last of a
foie-gras sandwich.

She turned away, frowning, "I don't see how you can call _me_ cynical!"

He raised his eyebrows, "That's not cynical," he protested. "You have
to take folks the way they are, and not the way you think it would be
pretty to have them. It mightn't be the most dignified position for the
king, but I never did see the use of dignity that got in the way of
your having what you wanted.