"As you have only just come out, I don't see why you should be just going in, unless it is to get away from me," said the Prince, "and I should be sorry to think that, because you are such a dear little girl, and I am very fond of you." "So was Papa," said I, with my best twelve-and-a-half-year-old expression. "But I am not quite ancient enough to be your Papa," replied the Prince, "so you need not name us together like that." "_Aren't_ you?" I asked, with big eyes. "Well, that depends on how old you are, my dear." "I'm too old for you to call your dear, unless you _are_ old enough to be my Papa," was the sage retort of Baby Beechy. "I'm over thirty," said the Prince. "Yes, I know," said I. "I found the Almanach de Gotha on the table of our hotel at Cap Martin, and you were in it." "Naturally," said the Prince, but he got rather red, as people always do when they find out that you know just how far over thirty they've really gone. "But I'm not married," he went on, "therefore you cannot think of me as of your papa." "I don't think of you much as anything," said I. "I'm too busy." "Too busy! Doing what?" "Playing dolls," I explained. "I wish you were a little older," said the Prince, with a good imitation of a sigh. "Ah, _why_ haven't you a few years more?" "You might ask Mamma," I replied. "But then, if I had, _she_ would have more too wouldn't she?" "That would be a pity. She is charming as she is. She must have married when almost a child." "Did you come out here at this time of the morning to ask me about Mamma's marriage?" I threw at him. "Because, if _that_ was your reason, I'd rather go in to my dolls." "No, no," protested the Prince, in a hurry. "I came to talk about yourself." I began to feel an attack of giggles coming on, but I stopped them by holding my breath, as you do for hiccoughs, and thinking about Job, which, if you can do it soon and solemnly enough, is quite a good preventive. I knew now exactly why Prince Dalmar-Kalm had dashed on his clothes at sight of me and come into the garden on an empty stomach. He had thought, if he could get me all alone for half an hour (which he'd often tried to do and never succeeded) he could find out a lot of things that he would like to know. Perhaps he felt it was impossible for anybody to be as young as I seem, so that was what he wanted to find out about first. If I _wasn't_, he would flirt; if I _was_, he would merely pump. There wasn't much time to decide on a "course of action," as Mamma's lawyer in Denver says; but I put on my thinking-cap and tied it tight under my chin for a minute. "There's more fun to be had in playing with him than with dolls," I said to myself, "if I set about it in the right way. But what _is_ the right way? I can't be bothered having him for my doll, because he'd take up too much time. Shall I give him to Maida? No, I'll lend him to Mamma to play with, so long as she plays the way I want her to, and doesn't get in earnest."