there? Anyhow"--he balanced the heart in the palm of his hand--"this hasn't lied. It has carried me through all my life. When I thought it failed, I found it at the purest truth of its prophecy. It's not going to fail me now. If it's right for me to take my seat I'll take it--whether I make good politically, or not, is on the knees of the gods. But you may take it from me that there's nothing in this wide world that I won't face or go through with, if I've set my mind to it." So the child who had kicked Billy Goodge and taken the spolia opima of paper cocked hat and wooden sword spoke through the man. As then, in a queer way, he found himself commanding a situation; and as then, commanding it rightfully, through sheer personal force. Again, at a sign, he would have broken the sword across his knee. But the sign did not come. "Speaking quite unofficially," said Frank Ayres, "I think, if you feel like that, you would be a fool to give up your seat." "Very well," said Paul, "I thank you. And now, perhaps, it would be wise to draw up that statement for the press, if you can spare the time." So Paul made a draft and Frank Ayres revised it, and it was sent upstairs to be typed. When the typescript came down, Paul signed and dispatched it and gave the Chief Whip a duplicate. "Well," said the latter, shaking hands, "the best of good luck!" Whereupon he went home feeling that though there would be the deuce to pay, Paul Savelli would find himself perfectly solvent; and meeting the somewhat dubious Leader of the Opposition later in the day he said: "Anyhow, this 'far too gentlemanly party' has got someone picturesque, at last, to touch the popular imagination." "A new young Disraeli?" "Why not?" The Leader made a faint gesture of philosophic doubt. "The mould is broken," said he. "We'll see," said Frank Ayres, confidently. Meanwhile, Paul returned to his room and wrote a letter, three words of which he had put on paper--"My dear Princess"--when the summons to meet the Chief Whip had come. The unblotted ink had dried hard. He took another sheet. "My dear Princess," he began. He held his head in his hand. What could he say? Ordinary courtesy demanded an acknowledgment of the Princess's message of inquiry. But to write to her whom he had held close in his arms, whose lips had clung maddeningly to his, in terms of polite convention seemed impossible. What had she meant by her message? If she had gone scornfully out of his life, she had gone, and there was an end on't. Her coming back could bear only one interpretation--that of Jane's passionate statement. In spite of all, she loved him. But now, stripped and naked and at war with the world, for all his desire, he would have none of her love. Not he.... At last he wrote: PRINCESS,--A thousand grateful thanks for last night's gracious act--the act of the very great lady that I have the privilege of knowing you to be. PAUL SAVELLI.