and I should be able to pull through. As it is, I feel inclined to
chuck it all."

The Princess looked at him curiously. He was certainly more than
ordinarily pale, and the hand which rested upon the side of his
chair was twitching a little nervously.

"My dear Nigel," she said, "do go to the chiffonier there and help
yourself to a drink. I hate to see you white to the lips, and
trembling as though death itself were at your elbow. Borrow a little
false courage, if you lack the real thing."

The man obeyed her suggestion with scarcely a protest.

"I had hoped, Ena," he remarked a little peevishly, "to have found
you more sympathetic."

"You are so sorry for yourself," she answered, "that you seem
scarcely to need my sympathy. However, sit down and talk to me
reasonably."

"I talk reasonably enough," he answered, "but I really am hard up
against it. Don't think I have come begging. I know you've done all
you can, and it's a matter with me now of more than a few hundreds.
My only hope is Engleton. Can't you suggest anything?"

The Princess rested her head slightly upon the long slender fingers
of her right hand. Bond Street had taken care of her complexion, but
the veins in her hand were blue, and art had no means of concealing
a certain sharpness of features and the thin lines about the eyes,