"Good-bye," she said, without offering to take it or look at him--and, after a miserable pause, he left the study. But before he had reached the front door he heard a swish and swirl of drapery behind him, and felt her light hand on his arm. "Ah, no!" she said, clinging to him, "I can't let you go like this. I didn't mean all the things I said just now. I _do_ believe in you, Horace--at least, I'll try hard to.... And I shall always, _always_ love you, Horace.... I shan't care--very much--even if you do forget me, so long as you are happy.... Only don't be _too_ happy. Think of me sometimes!" "I shall _not_ be too happy," he said, as he held her close to his heart and kissed her pathetically drawn mouth and flushed cheeks. "And I shall think of you always." "And you won't fall in love with your Princess?" entreated Sylvia, at the end of her altruism. "Promise!" "If I am ever provided with one," he replied, "I shall loathe her--for not being you. But don't let us lose heart, darling. There must be some way of talking that old idiot out of this nonsense and bringing him round to common sense. I'm not going to give in just yet!" These were brave words--but, as they both felt, the situation had little enough to warrant them, and, after one last long embrace, they parted, and he was no sooner on the steps than he felt himself caught up as before and borne through the air with breathless speed, till he was set down, he could not have well said how, in a chair in his own sitting-room at Vincent Square. "Well," he said, looking at the Jinnee, who was standing opposite with a smile of intolerable complacency, "I suppose you feel satisfied with yourself over this business?" "It hath indeed been brought to a favourable conclusion," said Fakrash. "Well hath the poet written----" "I don't think I can stand any more 'Elegant Extracts' this afternoon," interrupted Horace. "Let us come to business. You seem," he went on, with a strong effort to keep himself in hand, "to have formed some plan for marrying me to a King's daughter. May I ask you for full particulars?" "No honour and advancement can be in excess of thy deserts," answered the Jinnee. "Very kind of you to say so--but you are probably unaware that, as society is constituted at the present time, the objections to such an alliance would be quite insuperable." "For me," said the Jinnee, "few obstacles are insuperable. But speak thy mind freely." "I will," said Horace. "To begin with, no European Princess of the Blood Royal would entertain the idea for a moment. And if she did, she would forfeit her rank and cease to be a Princess, and I should probably be imprisoned in a fortress for _lese majeste_ or something." "Dismiss thy fears, for I do not propose to unite thee to any Princess that is born of mortals. The bride I intend for thee is a Jinneeyeh; the peerless Bedeea-el-Jemal, daughter of my kinsman Shahyal, the Ruler of the Blue Jann."