suspicion. If she was a princess and he but a soldier on guard, she
was a woman and he was a man: he was there to protect her! "How may
I serve your imperial highness?" he asked. She was silent yet a
moment, then said, "Your name?" He gave it. "Your nation?" He stated
it. "When are you here?" He told her his hours. "I will see you
again," she said, and turned and went back.

From that moment she loved him, and thought he loved her. But,
though he would willingly have died for her, he did not love her as
she thought. Alister wondered to hear him say so. At such a moment,
and heart-free, Alister could no more have helped falling in love
with her than he could help opening his eyes when the light shone on
their lids. Ian, with a greater love for his kind than even Alister,
and with a tenderness for womankind altogether infinite, was not
ready to fall in love. Accessible indeed he was to the finest of
Nature's witcheries; ready for the response as of summer lightnings
from opposing horizons; all aware of loveliest difference, of refuge
and mysterious complement; but he was not prone to fall in love.

The princess, knowing the ways of the house, contrived to see him
pretty often. He talked to her of the hest he knew; he did what he
could to lighten her loneliness by finding her books and music; best
of all, he persuaded her--without difficulty--to read the New
Testament. In their few minutes of conference, he tried to show her
the Master of men as he showed himself to his friends; but their
time together was always so short, and their anxiety for each other
so great, seeing that discovery would be ruin to both, that they
could not go far with anything.

At length came an occasion when at parting they embraced. How it was