"Is that better ?" "A little." "I see the Greek Kalends have begun," said he.
"Mechant, you have caught me in a trap," said she.
And they both laughed.
From which entirely foolish conversation it may be gathered that between our Fortunate Youth and the Princess some genial sun had melted the icy barriers of formality.

He had known her for eighteen months, ever since she had bought Chetwood Park and settled down as the great personage of the countryside.

He had met her many times, both in London and in Morebury; he had dined in state at her house; he had shot her partridges; he had danced with her; he had sat out dances with her, notably on one recent June night, in a London garden, where they lost themselves for an hour in the discussion of the relative parts that love played in a woman's life and in a man's.

The Princess was French, ancien regime, of the blood of the Coligny, and she had married, in the French practical way, the Prince Zobraska, in whose career the only satisfactory incident history has to relate is the mere fact of his early demise.

The details are less exhilarating.