Thus are we all the sport of circumstance. Thus was all Symford the sport of Priscilla. Fritzing knew nothing of his loss. He had not told Priscilla a word of his money difficulties, his idea being to keep every cloud from her life as long and as completely as possible. Besides, how idle to talk of these things to some one who could in no way help him with counsel or suggestions. He had put the money in his drawer, and the thought that it was still unchanged and safe comforted him a little in the watches of the sleepless nights. Nothing particular happened on the Thursday morning, except that the second of the twenty-five kept on breaking things, and Priscilla who was helping Fritzing arrange the books he had ordered from London remarked at the fifth terrific smash, a smash so terrific as to cause Creeper Cottage to tremble all over, that more crockery had better be bought. "Yes," said Fritzing, glancing swiftly at her with almost a guilty glance. He felt very keenly his want of resourcefulness in this matter of getting the money over from Germany, but he clung to the hope that a few more wakeful nights would clear his brain and show him the way; and meanwhile there was always the five-pound note in the drawer. "And Fritzi, I shall have to get some clothes soon," Priscilla went on, dusting the books as he handed them to her. "Clothes, ma'am?" repeated Fritzing, straightening himself to stare at her. "Those things you bought for me in Gerstein--they're delicious, they're curiosities, but they're not clothes. I mean always to keep them. I'll have them put in a glass case, and they shall always be near me when we're happy again." "Happy again, ma'am?" "Settled again, I mean," quickly amended Priscilla. She dusted in silence for a little, and began to put the books she had dusted in the shelves. "I'd better write to Paris," she said presently. Fritzing jumped. "Paris, ma'am?" "They've got my measurements. This dress can't stand much more. It's the one I've worn all the time. The soaking it got yesterday was very bad for it. You don't see such things, but if you did you'd probably get a tremendous shock." "Ma'am, if you write to Paris you must give your own name, which of course is impossible. They will send nothing to an unknown customer in England called Neumann-Schultz." "Oh but we'd send the money with the order. That's quite easy, isn't it?" "Perfectly easy," said Fritzing in an oddly exasperated voice; at once adding, still more snappily, "Might I request your Grand Ducal Highness to have the goodness not to put my Æschylus--a most valuable edition--head downwards on the shelf? It is a manner of treating books often to be observed in housemaids and similar ignorants. But you, ma'am, have been trained by me I trust in other and more reverent ways of handling what is left to us of the mighty spirits of the past."