"You must remember," Beverly said in reply to one of Ravone's sallies,
"that Americans are not in the least awed by Europe's greatness. It has
come to the pass when we call Europe our playground. We now go to Europe
as we go to the circus or the county fair at home. It isn't much more
trouble, you know, and we must see the sights."
"Alas, poor Europe!" he laughed. As he strolled about with her and
Candace he pointed out certain men to her, asking her to tax her memory
in the effort to recall their faces if not their apparel. She readily
recognized in the lean, tired faces the men she had met first at the Inn
of the Hawk and Raven.
"They were vagabonds then, Miss Calhoun. Now they are noblemen. Does the
transition startle you?"
"Isn't Baldos among them?" she asked, voicing the query that had been
uppermost in her mind since the moment when she looked down from the
galleries and failed to see him. She was wondering how he would appear
in court costume.
"You forget that Baldos is only a guard," he said kindly.
"He is a courtier, nevertheless," she retorted.
She was vaguely disappointed because he was missing from the scene of
splendor. It proved to her that caste overcame all else In the
rock-ribbed east. The common man, no matter how valiant, had no place in
such affairs as these. Her pride was suffering. She was as a queen among
the noblest of the realm. As the wife of Baldos she would live in
another world--on the outskirts of this one of splendor and arrogance.
A stubborn, defiant little frown appeared on her brow as she pictured
herself in her mind's eye standing afar off with "the man" Baldos,
looking at the opulence she could not reach. Her impetuous, rebellious
little heart was thumping bitterly as she considered this single phase
of the life to come. She was ready to cry out against the injustice of
it all. The little frown was portentous of deep-laid designs. She would
break down this cruel barrier that kept Baldos from the fields over
which prejudice alone held sway. Her love for him and her determination
to be his wife were not in the least dulled by these reflections.
The doors to the great banquet-hall were thrown open at last and in the
disorder that followed she wondered who was to lead her to the
feasting. The Duke of Mizrox claimed the Princess Candace.
"I am to have the honor," said someone at her side, and the voice was
the one she least expected to hear utter the words. The speaker was the
man who deserved the place beside Yetive--Prince Dantan himself.