My aunt Dorothy moved her head slightly toward my father, looking on the floor, and he at once drew in.

‘Mr. Beltham, I attend to you submissively.’

‘You do?  Then tell me what brought this princess to England?’

’The conviction that Harry had accomplished his oath to mount to an eminence in his country, and had made the step she is about to take less, I will say, precipitous:  though I personally decline to admit a pointed inferiority.’

‘You wrote her a letter.’

’That, containing the news of the attack on him and his desperate illness, was the finishing touch to the noble lady’s passion.’

’Attack?  I know nothing about an attack.  You wrote her a letter and wrote her a lie.  You said he was dying.’

‘I had the boy inanimate on my breast when I despatched the epistle.’

‘You said he had only a few days to live.’

‘So in my affliction I feared.’

’Will you swear you didn’t write that letter with the intention of drawing her over here to have her in your power, so that you might threaten you’d blow on her reputation if she or her father held out against you and all didn’t go as you fished for it?’

My father raised his head proudly.

’I divide your query into two parts.  I wrote, sir, to bring her to his side.  I did not write with any intention to threaten.’

‘You’ve done it, though.’

‘I have done this,’ said my father, toweringly:  ’I have used the power placed in my hands by Providence to overcome the hesitations of a gentleman whose illustrious rank predisposes him to sacrifice his daughter’s happiness to his pride of birth and station.  Can any one confute me when I assert that the princess loves Harry Richmond?’

I walked abruptly to one of the windows, hearing a pitiable wrangling on the theme.  My grandfather vowed she had grown wiser, my father protested that she was willing and anxious; Janet was appealed to.  In a strangely-sounding underbreath, she said, ’The princess does not wish it.’

‘You hear that, Mr. Richmond?’ cried the squire.

He returned:  ’Can Miss Ilchester say that the Princess Ottilia does not passionately love my son Harry Richmond?  The circumstances warrant me in beseeching a direct answer.’

She uttered:  ‘No.’

I looked at her; she at me.

‘You can conduct a case, Richmond,’ the squire remarked.

My father rose to his feet.  ’I can conduct my son to happiness and greatness, my dear sir; but to some extent I require your grandfatherly assistance; and I urge you now to present your respects to the prince and princess, and judge yourself of his Highness’s disposition for the match.  I assure you in advance that he welcomes the proposal.’

‘I do not believe it,’ said Janet, rising.

My aunt Dorothy followed her example, saying:  ’In justice to Harry the proposal should be made.  At least it will settle this dispute.’