A cloud passed over her face, but recovering, with a look which if Edestone had been younger and less sensible would have finished him: “Well, Mr. Edestone,” she smiled coquettishly, “I understand that you were tonight a match for an Emperor; and I am feeling very old myself.” With a smile acknowledging her condescension in allowing this slight exchange of repartee, he assumed a fatherly air, and said, having recovered himself entirely: “Now, my dear and very sweet little Princess, your very old and most humble servant awaits your orders. The only reward that he expects is that he be allowed to see you one or two times before he dies of old age, or you are seated on a throne.” With an impatient gesture, and an almost imperceptible stamp of her little foot, she said: “Please don’t talk that way. I hate being a Princess, and the way you say it makes me hate myself,” and with a quick glance and a tone of great seriousness: “I don’t think you are so old as all that. “I have sent for you,” changing her voice, “to warn you again. It was absolutely necessary in order to arrange this meeting to lead them to believe that I was willing to do that which you must hate me for--use my power as a woman to persuade you to give up the position which you have taken, and though I hate them all for it, in order to save you from certain death I have compromised myself in my own eyes, and have done that which will cause you to hate me.” “That I could never do,” said Edestone, which brought a faint smile to her lips. “Princess, I appreciate more deeply than I can say your great kindness, and if there is anything that I can do which will save you from these people when they find that you have failed in your undertaking, you can command me. Your warning, however, comes as no surprise to me; but I appreciate it none the less.” “Could I not hold out to them,” she anticipated, “that you had agreed to reveal this secret to me, and in that way gain time, and you might be able to get out of Berlin?” “But what would become of you when they discovered that you had played them false?” asked Edestone. And then, as if hesitating to refer to the delicacy of her position, an English Princess in Berlin, he added: “They are relentless, and they might suspect you of playing into the hands of England. No, Princess, there is but one thing for you to do, and that is to say that I declined absolutely and entirely to consider any proposition of any kind. “If you were in any way associated with me in what I have already done and what I propose to do, I should not be willing to leave you in Berlin, and though I know you are absolutely sincere in your intentions to assist me in my work, there is no possible way for me to protect you other than by taking you with me, which is absolutely out of the question. You would not be safe even in the American Embassy.” She thought for a while, and then, as if an idea had struck her, she said blushingly: