“I’m talking sense,” said he.  “I’m going through with it.  I’m in trade.  I know to the fraction of a penny how much fat ought to be used to a pound of hake, and I’m concentrating all my intellect on that fraction of a penny of fat.”

“Tu as raison,” she said.

“N’est-ce-pas?  It’s funny, isn’t it?  I’ve often told you I once thought myself the man born to be king.  My dreams have come true.  I am a king.  The fried-fish king.”

Sophie looked at him from beneath her long lashes.  “And I am a princess.  We meet at last on equal terms.”

Paul sprang forward impulsively and seized her hands.  “Oh, you dear, wonderful woman!  Doesn’t it matter to you that I’m running fried-fish shops?”

“I know why you’re doing it,” she said.  “I wouldn’t have you do otherwise.  You are you, Paul.  I should love to see you at it.  Do you wait at table and hand little dishes to coster-mongers, ancien regime, en emigre?”

She laughed deliciously.  Suddenly she paused, regarded him wide-eyed, with a smile on her lips.

“Tiens!  I have an idea.  But a wonderful ideal Why should I not be the fried-fish queen?  Issue new shares.  I buy them all up.  We establish fish palaces all over the world?  But why not?  I am in trade already.  Only yesterday my homme d’affaires sent me for signature a dirty piece of blue paper all covered with execrable writing and imitation red seals all the way down, and when I signed it I saw I was interested in Messrs. Jarrods Limited, and was engaged in selling hams and petticoats and notepaper and furniture and butter and—­remark this—­and fish.  But raw fish.  Now what the difference is between selling raw fish and fried fish, I do not know.  Moi, je suis deja marchande de poissons, voila!”

She laughed and Paul laughed too.  They postponed, however, to an indefinite date, consideration of the business proposal.

As Paul had foreseen, Society manifested no eagerness to receive him.  Invitations no longer fell upon him in embarrassing showers.  Nor did he make any attempt to pass through the once familiar doors.  For one thing, he was proud:  for another he was too busy.  When the Christmas recess came he took a holiday, went off by himself to Algiers.  He returned bronzed and strong, to the joy of his Sophie.

“My dear,” said Miss Winwood one day to the curiously patient lady, “what is to come of it all?  You can’t go on like this for ever and ever.”

“We don’t intend to,” smiled the Princess.  “Paul is born to great things.  He cannot help it.  It is his destiny, I believe in Paul.”

“So do I,” replied Ursula.  “But it’s obvious that it will take him a good many years to achieve them.  You surely aren’t going to wait until he’s a Cabinet Minister.”

The Princess lay back among her cushions and laughed.  “Mais non.  It will all come in woman’s good time.  Laissez-moi faire.  He will soon begin to believe in himself again.”