She half closed her eyes and looked at me, side-long, through her lashes.

“Have I ever blamed you?” she asked.

“Dehra,” said I, “if you look at me like that I shall kiss you now.”

She closed her eyes a trifle more.  “Where, Armand?” she said.  “You have been kissing my hair every time I let it touch your lips.”

“Let it touch them again, then,” I whispered.

She turned her head sharply from me and, then, slowly back again; and her perfumed tresses, dressed low on her neck, brushed full and hard across my face, from cheek to cheek.

“There, cousin,” said she; “am I not good?”

“Not entirely, when you call me ‘cousin,’” I said, looking her in the eyes.

“Your Highness, then,” she smiled.

“Worse still.”

“Marshal.”

“No better.”

“Marshal would please most men,” she said.

“There is only one name from you will please me, now,” I answered.

She quite closed her eyes.  “You are an autocrat to-night, Armand,” she murmured.

“I’m your lover, sweetheart; your lover to-night and always,” I said impetuously.

She opened her eyes wide and looked into mine with that calm, deep search which only a good woman has power to use.  I knew, and trembling waited.  What she saw in my eyes then she would see there always—­in storm, in sunshine—­in youth and in old age.

Then, suddenly, her glance dropped and a blush stole slowly across her cheek.

“To me, dearest,” she said softly, “you have been a lover since that day in the forest when you were only Captain Smith.”

I bowed my head.  “You Princess of women,” I said.  “How near I was to losing you.”

She turned and deliberately let her hair rest on my face a moment.

“There, dear,” said she, “is my first kiss to you.  I shall have to wait a bit for yours to me.”

“And you really want my kiss, Dehra?” I asked doubtingly.  Small wonder, indeed, I was slow to realize my fortune.

“You great stupid,” she laughed.  “Can’t you understand I have wanted it for six long years?”

“I think,” said I, “I’m dreaming.”

“For a dreamer, you’re wonderfully brave,” she said.  “Do you appreciate that you had the audacity to propose to the Princess Royal of Valeria while she sat in the Royal Box before all the fashion of Dornlitz?”

“My dear,” said I, “I would propose to her a dozen times under like conditions if I thought, at the end, she would do as she has done to-night.”

“If she had known that, she might have put you to the test.”

“It would have made her wait only the longer for that kiss she wants,” I said.

“Oh, I fancy, sir, she could have had your kiss without accepting you.  She needed only to give you half a chance.”

“I think,” said I, “even less than half a chance from you, dear, would have been successful.”