... But he smiled to be kind to her; and, to make
the poor, clouded mind a little happier still, he took her hand again and
said very gently:
"Will it surprise you to know that you are now a princess?"
"A--_what?_" she asked sharply.
"A princess." He smiled benignly on her, and, still beaming, struck a not
ungraceful attitude.
"I," he said, "am the Crown Prince of Rumtifoo."
She stared at him without a word; gradually he lost countenance; a vague
misgiving stirred within him that he had rather overdone the thing.
"Of course," he began cheerfully, "I am an exile in disguise--er--
disinherited and all that, you know."
She continued to stare at him.
"Matters of state--er--revolution--and that sort of thing," he mumbled,
eying her; "but I thought it might gratify you to know that I am Prince
George of Rumtifoo----"
"_What!_"
The silence was deadly.
"Do you know," she said deliberately, "that I believe you think I am
mentally unsound. _Do_ you?"
"I--you--" he began to stutter fearfully.
"_Do_ you?"
"W-well, either you or I----"
"Nonsense! I _thought_ that marriage ceremony was a miserably inadequate
affair!... And I am hurt--grieved--amazed that you should do such a--a
cowardly----"
"What!" he exclaimed, stung to the quick.
"Yes, it is cowardly to deceive a woman."
"I meant it kindly--supposing----"
"That I am mentally unsound? Why do you suppose that?"
"Because--Good Heavens--because in this century, and in this city, people
who never before saw one another don't begin to talk of marrying----"
"I explained to you"--she was half crying now, and her voice broke
deliciously--"I told you what I'd done, didn't I?"
"You said you had got a spark," he admitted, utterly bewildered by her
tears.
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