of that Princess Athalme, daughter of King Kab, in the dynasty of the fall of Rome.  Is it not, therefore, but the more incumbent upon your princess to own her allegiance to the law of the island by keeping her troth with me—­that troth witnessed and sanctioned by you yourselves?  This ceremony concluded I will answer the demands of the loyal subjects whose interests alone I serve.  For we obey that which is higher than authority—­the law, born in the Beginning—­”

Prince Tabnit’s voice might almost have taken his place in his absence, it was so soft, so fine of texture, no more consciously modulated than is the going of water or the way of a wing.  It was difficult to say whether his words or, so to say, their fine fabric of voice, begot the silence that followed.  But all eyes were turned upon Olivia.  And, Prince Tabnit noting this, before she might speak he suddenly swept his flowing robes embroidered by a thousand needles to a posture of humility before his sovereign.

“Your Majesty,” he besought, “I pray your consent to the bestowal upon my most unworthy self of the hand of your daughter, the Princess Olivia.”

King Otho leaned upon the arm of his carven throne.  Against its strange metal his hand was cameo-clear.

“For the king,” he was remembering softly, “’the Pyrenees, or so he fancied, ceased to exist.’  For another ’the mountains of Daphne are everywhere.’  Each of us has his impossible dream to prove that he is an impossible creature.  Why not I?  To be normal is the cry of all the hobgoblins ...  And what does the princess say?” he asked aloud.

“Her Highness has already given me the great happiness to plight me her troth,” said Prince Tabnit.

King Otho’s eyebrows flickered from their parallel of repose.

“In Yaque or in America,” he murmured, “the Americans do as the Americans do.  None of us is mentioned in Deuteronomy, but what is the will of the princess?” the American Sovereign asked.

Mrs. Hastings, seated near the dais, heard; and as she turned, a rhinestone side-comb slipped from her hair, tinkled over the jewels of her corsage and shot into the lap of a member of the High Council.  He, never having seen a side-comb, fancied that it might be an infernal machine which he had never seen either, and, palpitating, flashed it to the guardian hand of Mr. Frothingham.  At the same moment: 

“Ah, why, Otho,” said Mrs. Hastings audibly, “we had two ancestors at Bannockburn!”

“Bannockburn!” argued Mr. Augustus Frothingham, below the voice, “Bannockburn.  But what, my dear Mrs. Hastings, is Bannockburn beside the Midianites and the Moabites and the Hittites and the Ammonites and the Levites?”

In this genealogical moment the prince leaned toward Olivia.

“Choose,” he said significantly, but so softly that none might hear, “oh, my beloved, choose!”