“A kiss is more, sir.”

“It is a great deal more,” laughed the prince, tugging his mustache.

“Are you ready for a wager, sir?” asked Monsieur de Merosailles, leaning across the table toward him.

“I’ll lay you a thousand crowns to a hundred that you do not gain a kiss, using what means you will, save force.”

“I’ll take the wager, sir,” cried the marquis; “but it shall be three, not one.”

“Have a care,” said the prince.  “Don’t go too near the flame, my lord.  There are some wings in Strelsau singed at that candle.”

“Indeed, the light is very bright,” assented the marquis, courteously.  “That risk I must run, though, if I am to win my wager.  It is to be three, then, and by what means I will, save force?”

“Even so,” said Rudolf, and he laughed again.  For he thought the wager harmless, since by no means could Monsieur de Merosailles win so much as one kiss from the Princess Osra, and the wager stood at three.  But he did not think how he wronged his sister by using her name lightly, being in all such matters a man of careless mind.

But the marquis, having made his wager, set himself steadily to win it; for he brought forth the choicest clothes from his wardrobe, and ornaments and perfumes; and he laid fine presents at the princess’s feet; and he waylaid her wherever she went, and was profuse of glances, sighs, and hints; and he wrote sonnets, as fine gentlemen used in those days, and lyrics and pastorals, wherein she figured under charming names.  These he bribed the princess’s waiting-women to leave in their mistress’s chamber.  Moreover, he looked now sorrowful, now passionate, and he ate nothing at dinner, but drank his wine in wild gulps as though he sought to banish sadness.  So that, in a word, there was no device in Cupid’s armory that the Marquis de Merosailles did not practise in the endeavor to win a look from the Princess Osra.  But no look came, and he got nothing from her but cold civility.  Yet she had looked at him when he looked not—­for princesses are much like other maidens—­and thought him a very pretty gentleman, and was highly amused by his extravagance.  Yet she did not believe it to witness any true devotion to her, but thought it mere gallantry.

[Illustration:  THE PHYSICIAN RECEIVING THE PRINCESS IN THE MARQUIS’S SICKROOM.]

Then one day Monsieur de Merosailles, having tried all else that he could think of, took to his bed.  He sent for a physician, and paid him a high fee to find the seeds of a rapid and fatal disease in him; and he made his body-servant whiten his face and darken the room; and he groaned very pitifully, saying that he was sick, and that he was glad of it, for death would be better far than the continued disdain of the Princess Osra.  And all this, being told by the marquis’s servants to the princess’s waiting-women, reached Osra’s ears, and caused her much perturbation.  For she now perceived that the passion, of the marquis