"You have got the brains of one," retorted her mother. "John, will you please speak to her? Perhaps you can understand what it all means; I can't. She has been talking Greek to me--something or other about the Trojans." "Yes; the Trojan women," corrected Charlotte. "She says she's like one of them!" "So I am." "I don't know which one, you mentioned so many." "All of them. Yes, papa, they had to go and live with foreigners--men they had never seen." "Don't say 'live with'; it's an objectionable term." "Die with them, then: some did! One of them killed a king in his bath; at least his wife did, but it's all the same." "Yes; she began quoting some verses to me about that bath affair," said the Queen. "And I must say they didn't sound to me quite decent." Charlotte was quite ready to repeat it. "Oh, don't quote poetry to me!" begged the King. "I don't understand it." "And I try not to," said the Queen. So Charlotte's quotation was ruled out of the discussion. "Don't you think, my dear," persuaded her father, "that meeting him here, as it just so happens, will seem sufficiently accidental?" "Not after we've waited for him all this time; not after I climbed up that spire and threw my cap at him without knowing it," said the Princess. "Oh, you don't know what that paper has been saying!" And she pointed to the bits. The King stooped and began gathering them up. "It's all nonsense, John," said the Queen. "Don't indulge her by paying any attention." And at that renewed proof of her mother's imperviousness of mind Princess Charlotte ran out of the room. "Leave her alone!" remarked the Queen, sure of her own sagacity, "she'll calm down. My belief is that she really likes him. _I_ saw her looking at his photograph; it wasn't only once, either." IV Three days later the King and Queen of Jingalo were at home by special appointment to receive a call of ceremony. The streets of Bad-as-Bad were hung with flags--here and there of the two nationalities, side by side, their corners (delicate symbol!) tied together by a knot of white ribbon. Grooms of the Chamber had donned full Court dress for the occasion, and a complete staff of servants, equerries, attaches, and ministers in attendance lined the route from the portico of the converted hotel which served as the King's villa to the large private apartment where the actual meeting took place. "His Royal Highness, Grand Duke and Hereditary Prince of Schnapps-Wasser," pronounced the Master of Ceremonies in that awestruck tone which is exclusively reserved for the introduction of crowned heads or territorial princes; and a youthful giant, six feet four in height, entered the room, struck his heels together with military precision, and bowed low. He wore his own clothes--one of his own uniforms, that is to say--and the King of Jingalo wore one of his, for they had not hitherto exchanged regiments in token of peace and amity--a matter to be put right on a future occasion.