“Yes,” said Nadia. “Prince and king are the only titles they understand,” she added, to Caerleon, who was suffering agonies of embarrassment at the moment, for the man went down on his knees before him, and kissed his hand and laid it on his head. Then, before Caerleon could protest, he had risen, and was beckoning frantically to his companions, calling out to them in an unknown tongue. “This is too much,” said Caerleon to Nadia. “I shall tell them that you gave them the money after all.” “But that would not be true,” responded Nadia, in her matter-of-fact way; and Caerleon was forced to allow his hand to be kissed by each of the men in turn, the leader closing the ceremony by going through it himself a second time, saying earnestly in his barbarous German-- “Ah, why did not your Highness come to Thracia?” “There!” said Nadia, when they had gone on their way, followed by the blessings of the Thracians, “think how much you might have done for these poor men if you had been king. The whole country is desolate, or only half cultivated. It needs draining, improving, farming on proper methods. You Englishmen all understand farming, don’t you? You could teach them just the things they ought to learn, and introduce English implements. And then, you could also enforce temperance legislation. The people drink dreadfully, rich and poor alike, and there is no Government control of the liquor traffic. It would be virgin soil, the ideal spot for testing all the schemes. You could try as many experiments as you liked, even if you did not insist on total prohibition at once.” “I’m afraid I should experiment myself off the throne in no time,” said Caerleon, laughing, but Nadia glanced at him without a smile. “Better to fall through doing right than to succeed through doing wrong,” she said. “You are oracular to-day,” said Caerleon, but this made her angry, and she told him that as he did not like the way she talked, she would not talk at all,--a decision to which she adhered persistently, so that they returned to the hotel in silence. Her petulance was the more provoking in that this was their last day at Janoszwar, and that on the morrow the O’Malachy family would start on their journey to Thracia, while Cyril and Caerleon continued their walking-tour. It was their intention first to visit a number of ruined castles and other objects of interest out of the beaten track, and then to rejoin their friends at Witska, a mountain village celebrated for a medicinal spring, and situated exactly on the Thracian frontier. Just at the last moment Louis O’Malachy volunteered to accompany them on their tramp, and as they could not very well refuse his offer they accepted it, although neither of them anticipated much pleasure from his society.