He had guessed a good deal of the truth since he had been watching St. George flee over seas upon a yacht, shod, so to speak, with fire, and he had arrived at the suspicion that The Aloha was winged by little Loves and guided under water by plenty of blue and green dragons.  But he had not, until now, been thoroughly certain that St. George’s spirit of adventure had another name; and though theoretically his sympathies leaped to the look in his friend’s eyes, yet he found himself wondering practically what effect romance would be having upon their enterprise.  After all, from a newspaper point of view, to relinquish any part of the adventure was a kind of tragedy, and it cost Amory something to emphasize his assent.

“Of course she won’t,” he said, “and now let’s toddle down and see about it.”

When the tread of the feet of a detachment of the Royal Golden Guard was heard without, Rollo advanced to the door with a dignity which amounted to melancholy.  The setting of a palace and the proximity of a prince had raised his office to the majesty of skilled labour.  He always threw open the door now as who should say, “Enter.  But mind you have a reason.”

At sight of the long liberty of the corridor where the light lay mysteriously touching tiles and tapestries to festal colours, Amory’s spirits rose contagiously, and his eyes shone behind his pince-nez.

“Me,” he said, looking ahead with enjoyment at the glittering escort, “me—­done in a fabric of about the eleventh shade of the Yaque spectrum—­made loose and floppy, after a modish Canaanitish model.  I’ll wager that when the first-born of Canaan was in the flood-tide of glory, this very gown was worn by one of the most beautiful women in the pentapolis of Philistia.  I’m going to photograph the model for the Sunday supplement, and name it The Nebuchadnezzar.”

Amory murmured on, and St. George hardly heard him.  He could almost count by minutes now the time until he should see her.  Would she see him, and might he just possibly speak with her, and what would the evening hold for her?  As he went forth where she would be, the spell of the place was once more laid upon him, as it had been laid in the hour of his coming.  Once more, as in the hour when he had first looked down upon the valley brimming with a light “better than any light that ever shone” he was at one with the imponderable things which, always before, had just eluded him.  Now, as then, the thought of Olivia was the symbol for them all.  So the two went on through the winding galleries—­silent, haunted—­to the great staircase, and below into the crowded court.  And when they reached the threshold of the audience-chamber they involuntarily stood still.