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Two or three days later Norheys came to me in the club where I was lunching. He is a member of that club, but he very seldom enters it. The atmosphere and tone of the Senior Imperial are solid, and young men rather avoid the place. Norheys went there that day specially to meet me.

He dragged me off to a corner of the smoking-room after I had finished eating.

“Look here, Uncle Bill,” he said, “you remember my telling you the other day about my going in for being a king and that sort of thing.”

“Yes.”

“Well, Uncle Ned’s been at me again and he’s rather surprised me. Now I’m a fellow who isn’t at all easy to surprise; for what I always say is: Whatever happens—even if the jolly old sun doesn’t turn up in the morning at the proper hour—take it calmly. And that’s what I do, make a regular rule of it; but I’m bound to say Uncle Ned made me jump this time.”

“If there’s anything more surprising than being asked suddenly to be a king,” I said, “it must be something which would make an ancient Roman stoic jump.”

“You’d never think,” said Norheys, “that Uncle Ned would turn out to be a giddy matchmaker.”

I knew what he was at then. Troyte must have taken my advice and mentioned the proposed marriage.

“He wants me to marry a black princess,” said Norheys. “Now I’m not a prejudiced sort of fellow at all. What I always say about things of that sort is this: A fellow may not have been at a decent school, but he may be quite a decent sort of fellow. It’s the same with girls. Any girl may be a lady, don’t you know? and a fellow ought to marry her, supposing he wants to, like the king that the poem’s about who went round pretending to be a landscape painter and then married a beggar. I always say he was quite right there, if he really fancied the girl. But—well, hang it all, Uncle Bill, however unprejudiced a fellow is, he must draw the line somewhere, and I do think it’s a bit thick asking me to marry a black princess.”

“But,” I said, “the Princess Calypso isn’t black. What makes you think she is?”

“Sure to be. All those desert islandy places are governed by black princesses. I dare say she’s good-looking enough in her way. Uncle Ned seemed to think so. But I don’t like them black. And—well, hang it all, no fellow can possibly be expected to be pleased when he finds his wife is tattooed all over; and they all are. Quite right of her, of course, if it’s the thing to do in her own country. I’m not blaming her in the least. Only just I don’t like it.”

“My dear boy,” I said, “I’m not advising you to be a king, or to marry the lady. But I think I ought to tell you that Lystria isn’t an island. It’s miles, perhaps hundreds of miles, from the sea, and I don’t think that the Princess Calypso can possibly be black. I met her father once. He happened to be paying a visit to the Court of Sophia when I was attached to our legation there. He’s certainly white. The daughter wasn’t born at that time, but her mother was an Englishwoman and a cousin of your own. It’s most unlikely that the girl is black.”

“Even if she isn’t actually black,” said Norheys, “she’ll be dusky. Bound to be.”

“And I think, I really do think, that you may put the fear of her being tattooed out of your mind.”

“Even so,” said Norheys, “she’ll be more or less savage, and I don’t care for savages. It’s not that I’m particularly keen on civilization. What I always say about that is that a lot of it is rather rot. Still, that’s a different thing from marrying a savage. A girl ought to wear stays, you know, and go to a decent dressmaker.”

“You’re wrong about that,” I said. “The Central European aristocracy—and that’s the class she belongs to—are quite civilized. She probably speaks half a dozen languages and gets her frocks from Paris—or used to. She can’t now, poor thing, for her father is stony broke. That’s the reason she’s had to take to dancing. I don’t think you ought to blame her for that.”

“I don’t. I don’t think a bit the worse of a girl because she dances in public.”

That was certainly true. Norheys has no prejudice against Miss Temple.

“And I’m told,” I said, “that she’s quite a good-looking girl.”

“She may be,” said Norheys, “but my point is—that is to say, what I really feel is——”

There he stopped.

“If she isn’t black,” I said, “and isn’t tattooed, and has ordinary manners, and wears stays, which I’m perfectly certain she does, I don’t see what your objection is.”

“The fact is,” said Norheys, “that I’m engaged to be married to Miss Temple.”

“Did you tell your uncle that?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t want to ruffle the old boy, and that would have ruffled him. My idea is that you might break it to him, gently don’t you know, so as not to give him a shock. What I always say is this—if there’s a jarring kind of thing which has to be said, it’s better for a fellow to get some one else to say it.”

“You realize of course,” I said, “that if you refuse to marry Princess Calypso you can’t be King of Lystria.”

“I’d be sorry for that. I don’t mind saying that I’d rather like to be king of that country. If Viola and I could go there together——”

“Viola?”

“That’s Miss Temple. If she and I could set up there as king and queen, we could have a high old time and really make things hum. Viola would make a splendid queen, absolutely top hole.”

“You may put that idea out of your head at once,” I said.

“Uncle Ned and that stockbroker friend of his could have all the oil. We shouldn’t want a drop for ourselves, and I’d make the good old Lystrians dig like the devil. You might try to get Uncle Ned to look at it from that point of view.”

“It won’t do,” I said. “It really won’t.”

“I don’t see why not. I mean to say I think it might be worked if we went the right way about it. I’m not much of a whale on court etiquette and ecclesiastical law but I’ve always had a notion that there’s some sort of recognized dodge by which you can be married on the double if you’re a king, both marriages being perfectly O. K.”

“There are morganatic marriages,” I said.

“That’s it. I knew there was something of the sort, though I’d forgotten the word. Why can’t I go in for that?”

“It’s a left-handed and unsatisfactory arrangement,” I said. “I don’t think you ought to ask Miss Temple to agree to it.”

“I wasn’t thinking of asking her. The very last thing I want to do is to put Viola into an awkward position. In fact, I wouldn’t do it, not even to please Uncle Ned. My idea is to marry her in St. George’s, Hanover Square, with a bishop and bridesmaids and all complete. The other one, this Calypso girl, that Uncle Ned is so keen on, could be the morgan—what-do-you-call-it? I don’t suppose she’d mind.”

“My dear Norheys,” I said, “she’s a princess, the daughter of a man who was a European sovereign until a few years ago.”

“I don’t believe a black princess would be as particular as all that. She can’t be, especially if her arms and legs are all covered over with beastly tattooing. And I expect they are in spite of all you say. Look here, Uncle Bill, you’ve always been jolly good to me and all that. Just you put the morganatic scheme up to Uncle Ned. Be as persuasive as you can. I expect he’ll see his way to work it somehow. But you must make it quite clear that there’s to be no hanky-panky about Viola’s position. She may or may not be queen of Lystria, but she’s jolly well going to be Marchioness of Norheys.”

“I’ll speak to your uncle about it,” I said, “but it won’t be the slightest use. The thing’s impossible.”

“I don’t see why. Lots of these sultans and pashas and people have whole harems full of wives. I don’t want to go as far as that. At the same time, if they can do it, why can’t I?”

“Nobody’s proposing to set you up on the throne of a Moslem state,” I said. “Lystria is a Christian country.”

“Oh, come now. Christian. You can’t call those countries Christian. Hang it all, Uncle Bill, it was only last week I gave a fellow a subscription to a missionary society especially to convert the heathen. He wouldn’t want to convert them if they were Christians already, would he?”

“There’s an archbishop there,” I said. “A patriarch, which is a superior kind of archbishop. His name is Menelaus.”

“Sounds to me like the Greek grammar,” said Norheys, “for the matter of that, so does Calypso, and I’ve always barred learning Greek grammar.”