laid the proposal before you, I can now go with a good conscience and tell him you refuse it.” “Wait, father, please!” cried Philippa, in an uncertain voice. “I--I think I will take time to consider.” Her father turned and gazed at her. “Phil!” he said, with more sorrow and disappointment in his voice than she had ever heard in it before. “I think it’s only proper, as he says,” went on Philippa, with a laugh that was a little hysterical. Don’t you, father? I--I should not like to be too hasty. “Phil, I wouldn’t insult you by imagining that you could be induced to marry a man you didn’t love for the sake of a crown, but what in the world are you driving at? You needn’t think anything of what I said just now about the fellow’s making himself unpleasant to your uncle and the Queen, for what harm could he do, after all?” Philippa shuddered. Her father did not know what terrible harm King Michael might do if he chose. “But at any rate, don’t give him a moral claim upon you in this way. It’s quite unnecessary to be so tender of his feelings.” “Oh no, no moral claim,” said Philippa entreatingly. “You can tell him you are perfectly certain that delay will make no change in my feelings, but that if he wishes it, I will consent not to give him a final answer until the day after the wedding. It’s--it’s due to his position, father.” She laughed again. “I’m sure you can make him see it in that light.” “I can’t make you out, Phil,” said Lord Caerleon doubtfully, as he left her. Presently he returned, pulling at his moustache in a way that showed him to be still puzzled. “Well, Phil, I have given him your message, and he accepts it as merely his due. I can swear I’ve done my best to choke him off, but he won’t have it. I think he understands that he’s not to come hanging about the hotel, setting people talking, but he may do what he can, without making you conspicuous, to prepossess you in his favour--in conversation and so on. He seems very well satisfied, and I hope you are. I wish with all my heart you were safely engaged to--er--some other fellow.” “Are you determining to turn me out of doors if I accept King Michael, father? Don’t you think your way of receiving a king as a would-be son-in-law is just a little--original?” “Why, Phil?” cried her father in distress, catching sight at last of the tears in her eyes. “Oh, father, I’m so miserable--so frightened--I don’t know what to do!” and Philippa laid her golden head on his shoulder, and sobbed there comfortably, as if she had gone back ten years, and been a little girl again. “Do you want me to get rid of the fellow for you, Phil? I’ll do it like a shot. King or no king, I won’t have him making you cry with his silly nonsense.” “No, no, it’s not that. Lend me your handkerchief, father dear. This lace thing is no good. Don’t you think mother would come home now?”