Jennie saw his closely-cropped auburn head, and, as it raised until it overtopped her own, the girl, terrified as she was, could not but admire the sweeping blonde moustache that overshadowed a smile, half-wistful, half-humorous, which lighted up his handsome face.

The ribbon of some order was worn athwart his breast; otherwise he wore court dress, which well became his stalwart frame.
"I am disconsolate to see that I am indeed forgotten, Princess, and so another cherished delusion fades away from me." Her fan concealed the lower part of the girl's face, and she looked at him over its fleecy semicircle.
"Put not your trust in princesses," she murmured, a sparkle of latent mischief lighting up her eyes.
The young man laughed.

"Indeed," he said, "had I served my country as faithfully as I have been true to my remembrance of you, Princess, I would have been an ambassador long ere this, covered with decorations.
Have you then lost all recollection of that winter in Washington five years ago; that whirlwind of gaiety which ended by wafting you away to a foreign country, and thus the eventful season clings to my memory as if it were a disastrous western cyclone?
Is it possible that I must re-introduce myself as Donal Stirling ?" "Not Lord Donal Stirling ?" asked Jennie, dimly remembering that she had heard this name in connection with something diplomatic, and her guess that he was in that service was strengthened by his previous remark about being an ambassador.
"Yes, Lord Donal, if you will cruelly insist on calling me so; but this cannot take from me the consolation that once, in the conservatory of the White House, under the very shadow of the President, you condescended to call me Don." "You cannot expect one to remember what happened in Washington five years ago.

You know the administration itself changes every four years, and memories seldom carry back even so far as that." "I had hoped that my most outspoken adoration would have left reminiscence which might outlast an administration.

I have not found forgetting so easy." "Are you quite sure of that, Lord Donal ?" asked the girl archly, closing her fan and giving him for the first time a full view of her face.
The young man seemed for a moment perplexed, but she went on, giving him little time for reflection.