The Princess pointed toward the lawn to where Cecil and Jeanne were just starting a game of croquet.  Forrest watched them for a few minutes meditatively.

“Ena,” he said, dropping his voice a little, “what are you going to do with that child?  I have never quite understood your plans.  You promised to talk to me about it while we were down here.”

“I know,” the Princess answered, “only this other affair has driven everything out of our minds.  What I should like to do,” she continued, “is to marry her before she comes of age, if I can find any one willing to pay the price.”

“The price?” he repeated doubtfully.

The Princess nodded.

“Supposing,” she continued, “that her fortune amounted to nearly four hundred thousand pounds, I think that twenty-five thousand pounds would be a very moderate sum for any one to pay for a wife with such a dowry.”

“Have you any one in your mind?” he asked.

The Princess nodded.

“I have a friend in Paris who is making some cautious inquiries,” she answered.  “I am expecting to hear from her in the course of a few days.”

“So far,” he remarked, “you have made nothing out of your guardianship except a living allowance.”

She nodded.

“And a ridiculously small one,” she remarked.  “All that I have had is two thousand a year.  I need not tell you, my dear Nigel, that that does not go very far when it has to provide dresses and servants and a home for both of us.  Jeanne is content, and never grumbles, or her lawyers might ask some very inconvenient questions.”

“Supposing,” he asked, “that she won’t have anything to do with this man, when you have found one who is willing to pay?”

“Until she is of age,” the Princess answered, “she is mine to do what I like with, body and soul.  The French law is stricter than the English in this respect, you know.  There may be a little trouble, of course, but I shall know how to manage her.”

“She has likes and dislikes of her own,” he remarked, “and fairly positive ones.  I believe if she had her own way, she would spend all her time with this fisherman here.”

The Princess smoothed the lace upon her gown, and gazed reflectively at the turquoises upon her white fingers.

“Jeanne’s father,” she remarked, “was bourgeois, and her mother had little family.  Race tells, of course.  I have never attempted to influence her.  When there is a great struggle ahead, it is as well to let her have her own way in small things.  Hush!  She is coming.  I suppose the croquet has been a failure.”

Jeanne came across to them, swinging her mallet in her hand.

“Will some one,” she begged, “take our too kind host away from me?  He follows me everywhere, and I am bored.  I have played croquet with him, but he is not satisfied.  If I try to read, he comes and sits by my side and talks nonsense.  If I say I am going for a walk, he wants to come with me.  I am tired of it.”