When they got to the corner, Alice, in curiosity, peeped discreetly round. There he sat in the distance, going on unconcernedly with his work, taking no further notice of them. “It is all right, ma’am. He’s forgotten all about us. Of all the eyes----” “Be quiet, Alice! Not a word! Take me home--take me home quickly.” They were scarcely a hundred yards from where they lived, and Alice, well accustomed to the city, soon led her there. The door closed quietly upon them. Then the storm burst. Marigold flung off her hat and jacket--the one in the fire, the other in the coal-bucket; the clumsy clogs followed suit--anywhere so they were off. “I’ll never go out like that again! Never, never! I’ll be a beggar or I’ll be a princess, but no respectable, thick-set, clumsy-looking charwoman. I looked a fright, a perfect fright--and--and--and he was laughing at us. He was laughing, Alice.” “Let him laugh,” answered Alice sturdily, now that the eyes had gone recovering somewhat her customary sturdiness. “No,” retorted the Princess, clenching her white hands and knocking one lot of ivory knuckles on the table, “he had no business to laugh--no right to laugh. The get-up was absurd--a cat would have laughed at it.” “That’s what I say. Let him laugh.” “That I, in my position, should have come to this--to be laughed at by a man!” “Yes--Royalty escapes a lot that ordinary folk have to go through every day. It wasn’t his laughing that I objected to--but his eyes. Did you notice them, Princess?” “Don’t call me Princess; haven’t I told you not to?” “His eyes were the softest and most beautiful I ever saw.” “Alice!” “Yet for all that he made me feel cold. Perhaps it was damp under that arch. There’s been a lot of rain lately; I expect it was damp. Your hand was quite cold, Princess, when you took hold of mine.” Then suddenly Marigold stood quite still, and the restless air of violent temper suddenly left her. Her face was pale, and her eyes looked bigger than usual as she turned to her companion. “Alice, if I get knocked off the chess-board, that man does it.” “What do you mean, Princess?” “I instinctively disliked him when I saw him. You say the place was damp--where he was it was deathly cold. And yet--and yet--Alice, have you the sense to understand me?--had he been younger, less wizened-looking, I think he might have gained the kiss I’ve promised to the great High Priest.” Alice, usually so dense, simply nodded. “His eyes made you feel like that--did they not?” “No--I disliked his eyes. They were deep and dark and treacherous--no, no, not treacherous, but heartless and cold. It was his voice. It was the nearest approach to one I have always heard in my dreams. It was the kind of voice that could persuade you or compel you. If you closed your eyes it would be a pleasure to give way.” “He didn’t ask anything of _us_.”