“What a brute I must have been, that you should find it necessary to ask such a thing of me!” he burst out. “It makes me feel thoroughly ashamed to think what a cad I am. Do you think that it’s safe to have anything to do with me, Georgie?” “I don’t know whether it’s safe or not, but I love you so much that I couldn’t do without you,” said Georgia, unsteadily. “To hear you say that makes me feel that I could do anything you asked me. Help me to be more worthy of you, Georgie. If I hurt your feelings after this I deserve to be hung. Pull me up--simply slang me--if I say anything unkind. I never thought I was such a blackguard. No, only look at me, as you did just now, and if I don’t wilt, as Hicks puts it, that instant, then throw me over, for I shan’t be worth troubling about. I will get over that habit of letting out at the things you care for. I feel as though I could go anywhere and do anything to-day.” “And I feel so ridiculously safe,” said Georgia, smiling at him with an April face. “And yet nothing is really different from what it was yesterday.” “Oh, Dick! everything is different. There is hope to-day, and there was none then. Think how dreadful it would have been to be killed when everything was wrong between us.” “What a remark!” said Dick, lazily--“it’s almost worthy of young Anstruther; and how particularly cheerful the subjects of your thoughts are! Now that I am in a position to keep you from making rash expeditions to the Palace, I must say that I don’t see any present danger of your being killed.” “The calmness with which you contemplate such a contingency does infinite credit to your strength of mind, sir. But it is rather strange that you should have mentioned the Palace, for I am going there this morning.” “Not with my consent.” “Then without it, I am afraid. Dick, you are not going to get up a quarrel over such a little thing, surely? You don’t imagine that I should think of going now without taking every possible precaution, and getting Mr Stratford’s leave?” “What has Stratford got to do with it? It’s my affair.” “Excuse me, I think it’s mine. Now, Dick, you don’t deserve to be reassured and made to feel comfortable about it, but I am going to be magnanimous. While you were out in the early morning there came a messenger from the King. He said that they had not yet taken the bandage from the Queen’s eyes, because they were afraid to touch it if I was not there. He was so anxious that I should be present and direct operations that he offered of his own accord to send Antar Khan here as a hostage for the whole time I am gone. Now are you satisfied?” “Not unless I go with you.” “But that’s impossible. Rahah and I make the passage in the litter, and we couldn’t manage to smuggle you in. Besides, what should we do with you when we got to the Palace?”