Trafford took the missive, which bore the royal seal. It read as follows: "_Neptunburg._ "_My Good Friend,_ "_The procession leaves here at mid-day, when you must be in close attendance on the Royal Person. Lunch at 2 p.m. After lunch, an informal Council in the Throne room. After the Council, make your way to the private apartments. I will give orders for you to be admitted._ _Yours very bewildered,_ _G. v. S., I mean G. R._" Trafford read, and at the conclusion he whistled. What did it mean, what could it mean but one thing? The situation presented itself as a syllogism of amazing but irrefutable argument. The Princess was going to be crowned. It was undeniable that he had contributed largely to that consummation. The corollary was a ceremony of marriage between himself and the newly-elected sovereign. No wonder the smile gave place to a frown of deep bewilderment. No wonder he passed his fingers repeatedly through his thick and stubborn hair. The compact that was now disturbing his peace of mind had been entered into with the lightest of light hearts. The night he had first met the Princess he had been a soldier of fortune primed with good wine and the spirit of reckless adventure. But since then things had progressed with him, as with the state of Grimland, rapidly. The condition of spiritual stagnation in which he had visited Grimland was being slowly but surely overcome by fresh interests and rousing incidents. Three days ago it would have seemed a capital jest to go through the ceremony of marriage with an exceptionally beautiful girl with a kingdom for her dowry. Now it seemed like a piece of wanton blasphemy in the worst possible taste. He put a cigarette between his lips, and took a match from a heavy glass bowl that did duty as matchbox. He struck it on the ribbed side of the bowl, but the match burned his fingers before even it made acquaintance with the tobacco. Supposing he went through this ceremony, he reasoned, and supposing in this topsy-turvy country the ceremony was approved and ratified by the State--what then? A queer thrill ran through him at the supposition, but he shook his head fiercely. The more he saw of the Princess the more he liked her, and the more he realised the difference between liking and loving. There were strange ideals still lurking in the recesses of his unconventional brain, and to wed a woman for any less reason than a deep spiritual devotion seemed to him a prostitution of God's choicest gifts. And he could not honestly call his regard for the high-couraged little Schattenberg a deep spiritual devotion. It was clean and healthy as the north wind, and every whit as wholesome and refreshing--but was it even approximately like the sentiment he had entertained for the pedestalled Angela Knox?