It was a very pale and listless girl who had first met Stanief's envoys, but as the voyage proceeded she grew each day more rose-tinted, more daintily radiant and content. One would have said the salt winds blew across some Elysian garden, some fountain of Ponce de Leon, and brought health with their touch. She had a little way of suddenly blushing and smiling, as if at some delightful secret of her own not to be carelessly spoken. On the last day at sea she chose Allard's arm for her daily promenade up and down the deck. This honor was eagerly desired by the gentlemen, old and young alike, but she had hitherto shown a decided preference for the veteran admiral; or one of her ladies, if the sea were sufficiently calm. Allard no longer wore the scarf, but she had paused before him demurely. "Your arm is better, monsieur?" "Madame, it is quite well." "Then, if you do not fear to injure it--" And with that they were pacing dignifiedly down the shining deck, under a score of envious eyes. "To-morrow we arrive, monsieur." "In a happy hour for our country and the Grand Duke Feodor, madame." "He thinks so?" "Princess, can you doubt it?" evaded Allard, who himself had many doubts, remembering Stanief's grim sarcasms on the subject of being given the care of a twenty-year-old girl when his life was already one of crowded tasks and serious peril. Some trouble in his manner communicated itself to the small hand fluttering on his sleeve. "I do not want to doubt," she said. "I do not. Monsieur, in that old English legend--have you ever thought how wise King Arthur would have been, if instead of sending Lancelot to Lady Guinevere in his place, he had himself gone to meet her in Lancelot's guise?" "Why, I never did think," Allard acknowledged merrily. "But certainly he would have been much wiser, madame." He regarded her in bright question which drew the answer of her flush. "Do not modern King Arthurs ever choose the wiser course?" she faltered. "Perhaps they are too busy and hampered, madame, as the ancient king may have been also. Since I have lived at a court I have altered my ideas on such subjects. I never saw any one who worked so hard as the Regent. He has set himself a splendid task, and splendidly he carries it on." Iría's expression clouded slightly; the glance she stole at her companion was puzzled and full of dawning terror. "Yet he might leave it a little while, monsieur." "Madame, to leave it for one day might topple down the careful building of months. Moreover, he holds the city always under his grasp, fearing danger to the Emperor." Her left hand went to her heart. "Monsieur, we arrive to-morrow; it would not be kind to play with me." Allard met her pleading eyes with candid amazement. "Princess, what have I said? _I_ venture to play with your Royal Highness!"