“Ah, but then I will have Paris,” she cried gaily.  He was puzzled by her mood—­but then, why not?  What could he be expected to know of the moods of royal princesses?  No more than he could know of their loves.

Lady Deppingham was got to bed at once.  The Princess, more thrilled by excitement than she ever had been in her life, attended her friend.  In the sanctity of her chamber, the exhausted young Englishwoman bared her soul to this wise, sympathetic young woman in Persian vestment.

“Genevra,” she said solemnly, in the end, “take warning from my example.  When you once are married, don’t trifle with other men—­not even if you shouldn’t love your husband.  Sooner or later you’d get tripped up.  It doesn’t pay, my dear.  I never realised until tonight how much I really care for Deppy and I am horribly afraid that I’ve lost something I can never recover.  I’ve made him unhappy and—­and—­all that.  Can you tell me what it is that made me—­but never mind!  I’m going to be good.”

“You were not in love with Mr. Browne.  That is why I can’t understand you, Agnes.”

“My dear, I don’t understand myself.  How can I expect you or my husband to understand me?  How could I expect it of Bobby Browne?  Oh, dear; oh, dear, how tired I am!  I think I shall never move out of this bed again.  What a horrible, horrible time I’ve had.”  She sat up suddenly and stared wide-eyed before her, looking upon phantoms that came out of the hours just gone.

“Hush, dear!  Lie down and go to sleep.  You will feel better in a little while.”  Lady Agnes abruptly turned to her with a light in her eyes that checked the kindly impulses.

“Genevra, you are in love—­madly in love with Hollingsworth Chase.  Take my advice:  marry him.  He’s one man in a—­” Genevra placed her hand over the lips of the feverish young woman.

“I will not listen to anything more about Mr. Chase,” she said firmly.  “I am tired—­tired to death of being told that I should marry him.”

“But you love him,” Lady Agnes managed to mumble, despite the gentle impediment.

“I do love him, yes, I do love him,” cried the Princess, casting reserve to the winds.  “He knows it—­every one knows it.  But marry him?  No—­no—­no!  I shall marry Karl.  My father, my mother, my grandfather, have said so—­and I have said it, too.  And his father and grandfather and a dozen great grandparents have ordained that he shall marry a princess and I a prince, That ends it, Agnes!  Don’t speak of it again.”  She cast herself down upon the side of the bed and clenched her hands in the fierceness of despair and—­decision.  After a moment, Lady Agnes said dreamily:  “I climbed up the ladder to make a ‘ladyship’ of myself by marriage and I find I love my husband.  I daresay if you should go down the ladder a few rounds, my dear, you might be as lucky.  But take my advice, if you won’t marry Hollingsworth Chase, don’t let him come to Paris.”