“Pretty,"’ said Miss Winwood.

“It’s true.”

“I’m sure of it,” she said pleasantly.  “Besides, if you didn’t leave the nest and make a name for yourself, you wouldn’t be able to carry on our work.  My brother and I, you see, are of the older generation—­you of the younger.”

“You’re the youngest woman I know,” Paul declared.

“I shan’t be in a few years, and my brother is a good deal older than I.”

“Well, I can’t get into Parliament right away,” said Paul.  “For one thing, I couldn’t afford it.”

“We must find you a nice girl with plenty of money,” she said, half in jest.

“Oh, please don’t.  I should detest the sight of her.  By the way, shall you want me on Saturday evening?”

“No—­unless it would be to take Miss Durning in to dinner.”

Now Miss Durning being an elderly, ugly heiress, it pleased Miss Winwood to be quizzical.  He looked at her in mock reproof.  “Dearest lady that you are, I don’t feel safe in your hands just now.  I shall dine with the Princess on Saturday.”

An enigmatic smile flitted across Ursula Winwood’s clear eyes.  “What does she want you for?”

“To entertain an Egyptologist,” assured Paul.  He waved his hand toward the letter on the table.  “There it is in black and white.”

“I suppose for the next few days you’ll be cramming hard.”

“It would be the polite thing to do, wouldn’t it?” said Paul blandly.

Miss Winwood shook her head and went away, and Paul happily resumed his work.  In very truth she was to him the dearest of ladies.

The Princess Zobraska was standing alone by the fireplace at the end of the long drawing-room when Paul was announced on Saturday evening.  She was a distinguished-looking woman in the late twenties brown-haired, fresh-complexioned, strongly and at the same time delicately featured.  Her dark blue eyes, veiled by lashes, smiled on him lazily as he approached; and lazily, too, her left arm stretched out, the palm of the hand downward, and she did not move.  He kissed her knuckles, in orthodox fashion.

“It is very good of you to come, Mr. Savelli,” she said in a sweetly foreign accent, “and leave your interesting company at Drane’s Court.”

“Any company without you, Princess, is chaos,” said Paul.

“Grand flatteur, va,—­’ said she.

“C’est que vous Res irresistible, Princesse, surlout dans ce costume-la.”

She touched his arm with an ostrich feather fan.  “When it comes to massacring languages, Mr. Savelli, let me be the assassin.”

“I laid the tribute of my heart at your feet in the most irreproachable grammar,” said Paul.

“But with the accent of John Bull.  That’s the only thing of John Bull you have about you.  For the sake of my ears I must give you some lessons.”

“You’ll find me such a pupil as never teacher had in the world before.  When shall we begin?”