Can we close the door in his face? Is he not a friend? Can we help
ourselves if he knocks at our door and asks to see us?" Dorothy felt
a smart tug of guilt as she looked back and saw herself trudging
sheepishly up the front steps beside the intruder, who had not been
permitted to knock at the door.

"A gentleman would not subject you to the comments of--of--well, I may
say the whole world. He certainly saw the paragraphs in those London
papers, and he knows that we cannot permit them to be repeated over
here. He has no right to thrust himself upon us under the
circumstances. You must give him to understand at once, Dorothy,
that his intentions--or visits, if you choose to call them such--are
obnoxious to both of us."

"Oh, mamma! we've talked all this over before. What can I do? I
wouldn't offend him for the world, and I am sure he is incapable of
any desire to have me talked about, He knows me and he likes me too
well for that. Perhaps he will go away soon," said Dorothy,
despairing petulance in her voice, Secretly she was conscious of the
justice in her mother's complaints.

"He shall go soon," said Mrs. Garrison, with determination.

"You will not--will not drive him away?" said her daughter, quickly.

"I shall make him understand that you are not the foolish child he
knew in New York. You are about to become a princess. He shall be
forced to see the impregnable wall between himself and the Princess
Ravorelli--for you are virtually the owner of that glorious title. A
single step remains and then you are no longer Dorothy Garrison.