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Show i 1 'r OsiSM oegroeA. & SiliP BIRMINGHAM "You are," said the king. "I'm not. I'm going to see you into your hotel at Breslau and then take the night mail back to Berlin. Tou will be there for two days at least. Cnsimir Is doing do-ing his best, but he can't have arrangements ar-rangements at the schloss made any sooner. You can spend the whole time asking Calypso to marry you If necessary. But I don't expect you'll require more than half an hour." "Of course, I must see her privately," private-ly," said Tommy. "Ah," said the king. "I see your difficulty. De-r aunt of yours." "She's not inj aunt." "I meant to say U.at aunt of Lord Norheys?" said the king. "She looks as if she'd be a little difficult to get rid of. But I'll manage that for you. I'll manage It at once. I'll take Miss Church off to lunch with me in the restaurant car and I'll fix things up so that you and Calypso will have to lunch later: That will give you a clear hour all to yourselves. You ought to be able to explain away Miss Temple Tem-ple in far less than an hour." Tommy hoped and believed that he would be able to explain to the princess prin-cess that he was not Lord Norheys, If he got a chance of talking to her. But he remembered the note she had flung at him in the Mascotte. It seemed to him quite likely that she would not allow him to talk to her at all. "But even If you take Miss Church away," said Tommy, "will the princess talk to me?" "Of course she will," said the king. "She'll love to. She takes after her mother, and the late queen was almost al-most passionately fond of talking to me, especially about Miss Temple I mean of course whoever the Miss Temple happened to be at the moment. mo-ment. The number of times she talked to me on that subject would amaze you. And Calypso is exactly like her mother in many ways. I assure you, my dear boy, Whatever else you may have to complain of In married life, you'll never have It to say that your wife won't talk to you. And the same thing is true of the patriarch." Miss Temple's sake yon ought to listen lis-ten to me." "I won't," said Calypso, "and if you're a gentleman you'll go away." "I'll go away if you like, after you've heard what I've got to say." "I thought all Englishmen were gentlemen," gen-tlemen," said Calypso. "Not quite all. I've met one or two who weren't. And I'm Irish, not English." Eng-lish." "If you won't go away, I must," said Calypso. She stood up as she spoke, Intending to go out into the corridor. But to do that she would have been forced to pass quite close to Tommy. He was leaning forward in his eagerness to make her listen, so she might have to touch him as she passed. She hesitated. hesi-tated. "If you like," said Tommy, "I'll telegraph tele-graph to Miss Temple and ask her to say that she doesn't know me and doesn't want to have anything to do with me." "How can she say that, when she wrote to me that she loved you with all her heart?" She began to push past Tommy. But he proved that he had a gentleman's gentle-man's consideration for her feelings. Rather than allow her to go out into a draughty and uncomfortable corridor, corri-dor, he got up and went there himself. him-self. He stayed there smoking unhappily unhap-pily until the king and Janet Church came back from the restaurant car. Then Tommy went off and had his own luncheon. Calypso contented herself her-self with a few biscuits and an apple which Janet Church produced from her bags. Wherever Janet travels she always carries biscuits and apples with her. The king made himself very agreeable agree-able to Janet In the restaurant car, and no monarch in Europe has better bet-ter manners thnn he has. Perhaps he had never before exerted himself to be agreeable to a lady of Janet's age and appearance. The result was excellent. ex-cellent. Janet was pleased and flattered. flat-tered. "I am so very glad," he said, "that you are accompanying my daughter to Lystrla.' I feel that I can rely on you, on your kindness, your discretion, your wisdom. When all Is said and done, a young girl cannot have a better companion than an English lady. My dear wife was English." "I'm Scotch," said Janet. "My dear wife," said the king, "was half Scotch, and if there's anything in the world to be preferred to an English Eng-lish lady an a companion to a young and Impressionable girl, It Is a Scotch lady." A waiter flung three dishes of varied hors d'oeuvres on the table. The king helped Janet tenderly to a sardine, sar-dine, an oily slice of tomato and a small salted eel. Then he ordered a bottle of Burgundy. "At a time like this" he said. "After all, marriage Is a great occasion occa-sion In a girl's life. The help and advice ad-vice of a wise lady a little older than herself you won't mind my saying a little older, will you?" "I'm fifty-two," said Janet, "and not in the least ashamed of It." "I knew you wouldn't be ashamed of It. I could s.ee that at once. Your firm mouth, your clear, far-seeing eyes. Your calm strong outlook upon life, your profound Idealism " Janet Is far less sensible than she looks. She bridled with pleasure at the king's compliments. He filled her glass with Burgundy, and Janet so far forgot herself and her principles as to sip it without saying that all continental con-tinental water is poison. "A young girl," said the king, "Is apt to take exaggerated views of things which you and I regard as what shall I say? not right, certainly not right. But inevitable." The waiter whisked away Janet's plate, gave her another and dumped an enormous spoonful of omelette on It. She sipped her Burgundy again. The king's manner was caressing. The wine was strong. The omelette was excellent. But It takes more than wine, food and caresses to dull Janet's conscience. "If you're alluding to that unfortunate unfortu-nate young man's entanglement with a London actress " she said. "Young men," said the king, "will be young men." "They ought not to be," said Janet flrmly. "However," said the king cheerfully. cheerful-ly. "I'm not really nervous about Calypso. Ca-lypso. She'll get over It after a while. Her poor dear mother always got over it after a while." "Got over what?" "Come now," said the king, "you can hardly expect me to answer that. Of course you said you were forty-two, forty-two, but " "Fifty-two," said Janet. (TO BS CONTINUED.) CHAPTER XII Continued 17 "Strictly speaking," said the king, "they didn't choose you. Lord Edmund Ed-mund Troyte did that, he and Proco-pius Proco-pius Cable between them. There had to be a revolution, of course, and our aristocracy couldn't afford to pay for It. Nor could the patriarch. Revolutions Revolu-tions are appallingly expensive things, far more expensive than you'd think. Cable had the money and I'm hound to say he spent it generously. He flooded Lystria with English money to such an extent that the Megalian rate of exchange went up, which of course enraged the Megalians, who had been making a very good thing out of the valuta by paying off their debts In de-v de-v predated currency. The Lystrians are becoming actually rich. But neither neith-er Cable nor the patriarch nor any of the rest of us could have managed without Lord Edmund Troyte. Without With-out his help we couldn't have got any one to recognize the new king, and then of course we couldn't have had any monarchy." "I suppose not," said Tommy. "But even yet I don't quite see " "That gave Lord Edmund Troyte a sort of right to nominate the king, and But really they ought to have explained all this to you before you left London." "Nobody explained anything to me," said Tommy, "Well, I've explained It all now," said the king. "Lord Edmund Troyte nominated you." "I'm perfectly certain he didn't. If he nominated any one, It must have been Lord Norheys, and I keep on telling tell-ing you that I'm not Lord Norheys." "And I keep on forgetting," said the king. "But that doesn't really matter when we're alone, does it?" Tommy sat silent for a while. The king had at last made the position clear to him. He saw exactly what Casimlr's original mistake had been. He realized thatfor some reason very likely because of Miss Temple the real marquis of Norheys had not arrived In Berlin. But even If he had arrived, he could not have married the princess. Miss Temple's letter had settled set-tled that point. Calypso was perfectly perfect-ly determined, and behind her ' was the terrifying figure of the puritan patriarch. pa-triarch. Why should he not step Into Lord Norheys' empty position? Casimir ' whs apparently quite ready to accept any one as king who would seat the princess on the throne beside him. The patriarch had no objection to a curate, so long as lie was a respectable curate. cu-rate. And Tommy was perfectly respectable. re-spectable. The head waiter ex-klng was delighted to accept him as a son-in-law. So long as he was perfectly straightforward and made his position plain to every one, Tommy did not see that he could be blamed afterward If he accepted a bride and a throne which were almost forced upon hlin. And, besides In judging him we must (i I ways remember this he had fallen In love with Calypso. "The only person who doesn't seem to have been consulted," said Tommy, "Is the princess herself." "Calypso won't raise any objections," objec-tions," said the king, "once the Miss Temple difficulty Is removed. She's a good girl, always was. Takes after her mother. You didn't know the late queen, did you?" "No." "A thoroughly good woman," said the king. "In fact, the only objection to her was that she was too good, cer-4 cer-4 tninly much too good for me. She brought up Calypso with very strict Ideas, she and the patriarch between them." "Rut I've no reason to suppose she'll marry me," said Tommy. "Oh. she will," said the king. "The only down she ever had on you was that little muddle-up with Miss Temple. Tem-ple. Until she heard of that she hadn't any objection to you at all." "But that Isn't an objection to me," said Tommy. "It's an objection to I Lord Norheys" ! "Exactly," said the king. "That's what I'm saying. And now that you've cleared up this Miss Temple scandal, there's nothing at nil against you that I can see. And I must say that you've cleared It up thoroughly and completely. There's not the smallest small-est vestige of a stain left on your character. char-acter. I couldn't have believed beforehand before-hand that you could have cleared It tip so well. I aon't see how either Cnlypso or the patriarch can have a word left to say about It." "All the same," said Tommy, "I'd like to ask her myself." "So you shall," said the king. "And you needn't be a bit nervous. Once you've convinced her that you never had anything to do with Miss Temple, Tem-ple, she'll be perfectly ready to marry j JVT." ! "But I should like to ask her before Iwe get to Lystrla. I suppose we're on ur wa.T there now." CHAPTER XIII The Princess Calypso, It appeared, w-as not so fond as her mother had been of talks on uncomfortable and embarrassing subjects. The king took Janet Church away to the restaurant car. By an exercise of skill and tact of which only a man trained as a king would have been capable, he left Calypso and Tommy behind. They were safe from Interruption Inter-ruption for an hour. Tommy ought to have been able to explain his position to her. He failed, because Calypso refused to listen to him. She turned her back on him and stared out of the window. This was discouraging, but Tommy was not going go-ing to be defeated by her manner. He took the corner seat opposite her. Calypso Ca-lypso Immediately got up and crossed to the other end of the compartment. Tommy did not venture to follow her the whole way. He sat clown In the middle of the seat opposite to her. "I hope," he said, "that you will allow al-low me to explain myself, to tell you who I am and what I'm doing here. This letter which you wrote to me " He took from his breast pocket the note which Calypso had thrown to him In the Mascotte. She was staring star-ing steadily into the corridor outside, and she did not turn her head ; but she knew perfectly well what Tommy was talking about. "I don't want to listen to any explanation," ex-planation," she said, "and I've nothing noth-ing to say to you except what I said in that letter. Go back to Miss Temple." Tem-ple." "But you must allow me to explain," said Tommy. Calypso had no answer to give him except a muttered repetition of the words, "Go back to Miss Temple." "I must say this."' said Tommy. "I'm not the man you think I am." "You're a very heartless and cruel man." said Calypso. "If you weren't heartless and cruel, you wouldn't be breaking Miss Temple's heart. Why won't you go back to her?" "I can't go back to her, because I've never spoken to her and I don't know who she is." "How can you say a thing like that when you're deserting her?" Tommy, In his eagerness to be listened lis-tened to, had edged his way across the carriage until he sat exactly opposite to Calypso. She crossed the carriage again to get away from him and onoe more Tommy followed her half way. "I don't went to worry you." he said, "but 1 think you really ought to listen lis-ten to me." "You are worrying me. You're doing do-ing worse, you're persecuting me." "The last thing in the world I want to do Is to annoy you in any way. But for your own sake as well as mine, and for Lord Norheys' sake, and for |