“Perhaps,” Cecil suggested, “you would like to try the golf links.  I believe there are some quite decent ones not far away.”

The Princess shook her head.

“No!” she answered.  “Golf is too civilized a game.  We will go out in a fishing boat with plenty of cushions, and we will try to catch fish.  I know that Jeanne will love it, and that you others will hate it.  Between the two of you it should be amusing.”

“Very well,” Cecil declared, with an air of resignation, “whatever happens will be upon your own shoulders.  There is a boat in the village which we can have.  I will have it brought up to our own quay in an hour’s time.  If the worst comes to the worst, and we are bored to death, we can play bridge on the way.”

“There will be no cards upon the boat,” the Princess declared decidedly.  “I forbid them.  We are going to lounge and look at the sea and get sunburnt.  Jeanne can wear a veil if she likes.  I shall not.”

Cecil shrugged his shoulders.

“Very well,” he said.  “Whatever happens, don’t blame me.”

* * *

The Princess had her way and behaved like a schoolgirl.  She sat in the most comfortable place, surrounded with a multitude of cushions, with her tiny Japanese spaniel in her arms, and a box of French bonbons by her side.  Jeanne stood in the bows, bareheaded and happy.  Lord Ronald, who was feeling a little sea-sick, sat at her feet.

“I had no idea,” he remarked plaintively, “that your mother was capable of such crudities.  If I had known, I certainly would not have trusted myself to such a party.  This sea air is hateful.  It has tarnished my cigarette-case already, and one’s nails will not be fit to be seen.  To be out of doors like this is worse than drinking unfiltered water.”

Jeanne smiled down at him a little contemptuously.

“You are a child of the cities, Lord Ronald,” she remarked.  “Next year I am going to buy a yacht myself, but I shall not ask you to come with us.”

Lord Ronald groaned.

“That is the worst of all heiresses,” he said.  “You have such queer tastes.  I shall never summon up my courage to propose to you.”

“There is always leap year,” Jeanne reminded him.

“What a bewildering suggestion!” he murmured, looking uncomfortably over the side of the boat.  “I say, Forrest, what do you think of this sort of thing?”

“Idyllic!” Forrest declared cynically.  “To sit upon a hard plank and to have one’s digestion unmercifully interfered with like this is unqualified rapture.  If only there were cabins one might sleep.”

“There will be cabins on my yacht,” Jeanne declared laughing, “but I shall not ask either of you.  You are both of you knights of the candle light.  I shall get some great strong fisherman to be captain, and I shall go round the world and forget the days and the months.”

Forrest shivered slightly.