in the land might well have been fluttered by signs of peculiar favour from Princess Sophie Zobraska.  Why’ then, should Paul be blamed for walking on air instead of greasy pavement on the way from Berkeley Square to Portland Place?  Moreover, as sanity returned to him, his quick sense recognized in his Princess’s offer to support him, a lovely indiscretion.  Foreign ladies of high position must be chary of their public appearances.  Between the row-boat on the Serpentine and the platform in the drill hall, Hickney Heath, the difference was but one of degree.  And for him alone was this indiscretion about to be committed.  His exultation was tempered by tender solicitude.

At dinner that evening—­he was dining alone with the Winwoods—­ he said:  “I’ve persuaded the Princess to come to our meeting on Friday.  Isn’t it good of her?”

“Very good,” replied Colonel Winwood.  “But what interest can she take in the lower walks of English politics?”

“It isn’t English politics,” said Paul.  “It’s world politics.  The Princess is an aristocrat and is tremendously keen on the Conservative principle.  She thinks our scheme for keeping the youth of the nation free from the taint of Socialism is magnificent.”

“H’m!” said the Colonel.

“And I thought Miss Winwood would be pleased if I inveigled Her Highness on to the platform,” said Paul.

“Why, of course it’s a good thing,” assented the Colonel.  “But how the deuce did you get her?”

“Yes, how?” asked Miss Winwood, with a smile in her straight blue eyes.

“How does one get anything one wants in this world,” said Paul, “except by going at it, hammer and tongs?”

A little later, when Paul opened the dining-room for her to pass out, she touched his shoulder affectionately and laughed.  “Hammer and tongs to Sophie Zobraska!  Oh, Paul, aren’t you a bit of a humbug?”

Perhaps he was.  But he was ingenuous in his desire to shield his Princess’s action from vain conjecture.  It were better that he should be supposed, in vulgar phrase, to have roped her in, as he had roped in a hundred other celebrities in his time.  For there the matter ended.  On the other hand, if he proclaimed the lady’s spontaneous offer, it might be subjected to heaven knew how many interpretations.  Paul owed much of his success in the world to such instinctive delicacies.  He worked far into the night, composing his speech on England’s greatness to the beautiful eyes of his French Princess.

The Young England League was his pet political interest.  It had been inaugurated some years before he joined the Winwoods.  Its objects were the training of the youth, the future electorate of England, in the doctrines of Imperialism, Constitutionalism and sound civicism, as understood by the intellectual Conservatives.  Its mechanical aims were to establish lodges throughout the country.  Every town and rural district should