"Ah, no," answered Amory with engaging candour, "I don't. But I--happened up this way." Amory paused a little desperately. In that soft light he could not tell positively whether this was Miss Holland or that other figure of silver and rose which he had seen in the throne room. The blue gown was not interpretative. If she was Miss Holland it would be very shabby of him to herald the surprise. Naturally, St. George would appreciate doing that himself. "I'm looking about a bit," he neatly temporized. Antoinette suddenly looked away over the terrace as her eyes met his, smiling behind their pince-nez. Amory was good to look at, and he had never been more so than as he towered above her on the steps of the king's palace. Who was he--but who was he? Antoinette wondered rapidly. Had a warship arrived? Was Yaque taken? Or had--she turned eyes, round with sudden fear, upon Amory. "Did Prince Tabnit send you?" she demanded. Amory laughed. "No, indeed," he said. Amory had once lived in the South, and he accented the "no" very takingly. "I came myself," he volunteered. "I thought," explained Antoinette, "that maybe he opened a door in the dark, and you walked out. It _is_ rather funny that you should be here." "You are here, you know," suggested Amory doubtfully. "But I may be a cannibal princess," Antoinette demurely pointed out. It was not that her astonishment was decreasing; but why--modernity and the democracy spoke within her--waste the possibilities of a situation merely because it chances to be astonishing? Moments of mystery are rare enough, in all conscience; and when they do arrive all the world misses them by trying to understand them. Which is manifestly ungrateful and stupid. They do these things better in Yaque. "You maybe," agreed Amory evenly, "though I don't know that I ever met a desert island princess in a dinner frock. But then, I am a beginner in desert islands." "Are you an American?" inquired Antoinette earnestly. Amory looked up at the frowning façade of the king's palace, and he could have found it in his heart to believe his own answer. "I'm the ghost," he confessed, "of a poor beggar of a Phoenician who used to make water-jars in Sidon. I have been condemned to plow the high seas and explore the tall mountains until I find the Pitiful Princess. She must be up at the very peak, in distress, and I--" Amory stopped and looked desperately about him. Would St. George never come? How was he, Amory, to be accountable for what he told if he were left here alone in these extraordinary circumstances? Then Antoinette lightly clapped her hands. "A ghost!" she exclaimed with pleasure. "Miss Holland hoped the place was haunted. A Phoenician ghost with an Alabama accent." She had said "Miss Holland hoped." "Aren't you--aren't you Miss Holland?" demanded Amory promptly, a joyful note of uncertainty in his voice. Antoinette shook her head. "No," she said, "though I don't know why I should tell you that."