“Then I am just in time to save my character.”

“Don’t be too sure about that,” returned Miss Royal.

Waldo laughed, and Katie exchanged glances with him, and smiled mischievously.

“No, don’t be too sure; it will depend upon whether you say ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ to my question.  We were wondering something about you.”

Harwin’s heart sank, though he returned her smile and her glance with interest.  For there were questions she might ask which would inconvenience him, but they should not embarrass him.

“We were wondering,” pursued Katie, “if you had ever been presented.  Have you?”

As the sun breaks out from a heavy cloud, the light returned to Harwin’s blue eyes.

“Yes,” he said, “four years ago.  I went to court with my uncle, Sir Rydal Harwin, and his majesty was gracious enough to nod in answer to my profound reverence.”

“It was a very brilliant scene, I am sure, and very interesting.”

“Deeply interesting,” returned Harwin with all the traditional respect of an Englishman for his sovereign.  Archdale’s lip curled a trifle at what seemed to him obsequiousness, but Harwin was not looking at him.

“Stephen has been,” pursued Katie, “and he says it was very fine, but for all that he does not seem to care at all about it.  He says he would rather go off for a day’s hunting any time.  The ladies looked charming, he said, and the gentlemen magnificent; but he was bored to death, for all that.”

“In order to appreciate it fully,” returned Archdale, “it would be necessary that one should be majesty.”  He straightened himself as he spoke, and looked at Harwin with such gravity that the latter, meeting the light of his eyes, was puzzled whether this was jest or earnest, until Miss Royal’s laugh relieved his uncertainty.  Katie laid her hand on the speaker’s arm and shook it lightly.

“You told me I should be sure to enjoy it,” she said.  “Now, what do you mean?”

“Ah! but you would be queen,” said Harwin, “queen in your own right, a divine right of beauty that no one can resist.”

Katie looked at him, disposed for a moment to be angry, but her love of admiration could not resist the worship of his eyes, and the lips prepared to pout curved into a smile not less bewitching that the brightness of anger was still in her cheeks.  Archdale and Waldo turned indignant glances on the speaker, but it was manifestly absurd to resent a speech that pleased the object of it, and that each secretly felt would not have sounded ill if he had made it himself.  Elizabeth looked from Katie to Harwin with eyes that endorsed his assertion, and as the latter read her expression his scornful wonder in the boat returned.