‘You needn’t explain the trick,’ he said, with the appearance of great good-humour, ’but just tell me why you played it.  Did you think I should believe you were up to something queer, eh?’

‘You must think what you like,’ she sobbed, utterly humiliated.

He roared with laughter.

’What a splendid idea!  The Princess getting tired of propriety and making appointments in London!  Little fool! do you think I should care one straw?  Why shouldn’t you amuse yourself?’

Alice looked at him with eyes of wondering misery.

‘Do you mean that you don’t care enough for me to—­to—­’

’Don’t care one farthing’s worth!  And to think you went and walked about in the mud and the east wind!  Well, if that isn’t the best joke I ever heard!  I’ll have a rare laugh over this story with some men I know to-morrow.’

She crept away to her bedroom.  He had gone far towards killing the love that had known no rival in her heart.

He bantered her ceaselessly through breakfast next morning, and for the first time she could find no word to reply to him.  Her head drooped; she touched nothing on the table.  Before going off he asked her what the appointment was for to-day, and advised her not to forget her latch-key.  Alice scarcely heard him, she was shame-stricken and wobegone.

Rodman, on the other hand, had never been in better spirits.  The ‘Irish Dairy Company’ was attracting purchasers of shares.  It was the kind of scheme which easily recommended itself to a host of the foolish people who are ever ready to risk their money, also to some not quite so foolish.  The prospectus could show some respectable names:  one or two Irish lords, a member of Parliament, some known capitalists.  The profits could not but be considerable, and think of the good to ’the unhappy sister country’—­as the circular said.  Butter, cheese, eggs of unassailable genuineness, to be sold in England at absurdly low prices, yet still putting the producers on a footing of comfort and proud independence.  One of the best ideas that had yet occurred to Mr. Robert Delancey.

He—­the said Mr. Delancey, alias Mr. Willis Rodman, alias certain other names—­spent much of his time just now in the society of a Mr. Hilary, a gentleman who, like himself, had seen men and manners in various quarters of the globe, and was at present making a tolerable income by the profession of philanthropy.  Mr. Hilary’s name appeared among the directors of the company; it gave confidence to many who were familiar with it in connection with not a few enterprises started for the benefit of this or that depressed nationality, this or the other exploited class.  He wrote frequently to the newspapers on the most various subjects; he was known to members of Parliament through his persistent endeavours to obtain legislation with regard to certain manufactures proved to be gravely deleterious to the health of those employed in them.  To-day Mr. Delancey and Mr. Hilary passed some hours together in the latter’s chambers.  Their talk was of the company.