"Oh!" Her lips parted in ecstasy and her cheeks, which had been crimson, became scarlet. "You--are really a prince?" "Of the air, mademoiselle." He folded his arms and tilted his chair back. His face was still grave, but his voice had a sense of distance in it, and his light eyes widened as though they saw the world his words were picturing. "My kingdom is greater than all the kingdoms of the earth, and when I ride, my steed with wings takes me towards the stars. For sport I play with clouds and race the wind; at night the moon gives me light; and when I travel there are no mountains to climb, no lakes to cross. I go faster than the swiftest horse, and ride from villages to cities, out into the country, and over the sea with a steed that never tires." "But, monsieur," she cried, "this is wonderful!" He looked frankly into her eyes. "It _is_ wonderful," he said. For a few minutes neither spoke, and the soft symphony of raindrops played through the quietness of the night. "Your Majesty," she said timorously, "are you very brave? You understand," she hurried on as a slight blush darkened the tan of his cheeks, "in fairy books the prince always fights a dragon or a wicked giant." "Don't uncles count?" She made a pretty _moue_. "As a matter of fact," he said slowly, "there was a wicked Emperor--a blustering popinjay with a madman's vanity--who decreed that all the world should be his slaves, and sent his armies into France and Belgium to enforce his will. My brothers heard of this, and came from countries and dominions thousands of miles away. Across great continents of water they sailed, and, with their brothers from the little Islands of the North Sea, came to France...." "Your voice is very sad," she said tenderly. Her nature, that knew every mood of a summer breeze, had caught the inflection of his words, understanding by their tone what the vagueness of his words hid from her mind. "So many have died," he said, looking away from her. "Almost every day some one rides out into the sunlight to his death, young, brave, and smiling.... Mademoiselle, it is wonderful how they smile." Tick--tick--tick. For more than a minute neither spoke, then, with a smile that was strangely boyish, he squared his shoulders and ran his fingers through his rumpled hair. "Ha!" he laughed; "what fancies get into a scatter-brain like mine when the rain's a-pattering on the roof. If you will allow me, little Pippa, I shall smoke." "Little Peepa?" she laughed delightedly. "Pippa," he assented, puffing smoke as he lighted the pipe. "I think I shall call you that. You see, according to her biographer, Mr. Browning, she worked in the silk-mills all the year, but one day she had to herself, from dawn to midnight, and so as to enjoy it to the full she--well, she pretended, like you."