her shoe. The carpets in Beaufort’s hotel have the softest and deepest pile of any carpets in Europe. Madame’s first two or three hacks did no more than snap the stem of the glass. To complete its destruction she stood up and stamped on it.

Gorman may have feared that she would trample on him next. He told me that she really was a very alarming sight. Stimulated by terror, his mind worked quickly.

“Look here,” he said to the King, “I’ve got a suggestion to make. Get Madame to sit down and keep quiet for a few minutes.”

The King had an experience, gathered during six years of intimacy, of Madame’s ways. He knew what to do with her. He got another glass of brandy and a box of cigarettes. He set them on a table beside a deep armchair. Madame suffered herself to be led to the chair.

“Now, my friend Gorman,” said the King, “if you have a key which will open the dead lock, make it trot out.”

“What Donovan wants,” said Gorman, “is a kingdom for his daughter. Not Megalia in particular, but some kind of right to wear a crown. Any other kingdom would do as well.”

“But there is no other,” said the King. “In all the courts of Europe there is no other king in such a damned hole as I am, no other king who would sell even if he could.”

“I don’t know Megalia well,” said Gorman, “but there must surely be some outlying corner of that interesting country—an island, for instance—which you could make over, sporting, mineral and royal rights, to Donovan; just as England gave Heligoland to the Germans and somebody or other, probably the Turks, gave Cyprus to the English. The thing is constantly done.”

“But the Emperor,” said the King. “Again and always the Emperor. All roads lead to Rome. All Real Politik brings us in the end back to the Emperor.”

“My idea,” said Gorman, “would be, to choose a small island, quite a small one, so small that the Emperor wouldn’t notice it was gone. As a matter of fact I expect a small island would suit Donovan better than the whole country. He has a weak heart and has come over to Europe for rest and quiet. He won’t want to be bothered with the politics and revolutions and complications which will be sure to arise in a large tract of land like Megalia.”

“A revolution,” said the King, “arises there regularly. A revolution is biennial in Megalia.”

“In a really small island,” said Gorman, “that would not happen. A man like Donovan would feed the inhabitants until they got too fat for revolutions. Now the question is, do you own an island of that kind?”

“There is,” said the King, “Salissa. There is certainly Salissa. My predecessor on the throne, my cousin Otto, resided in Salissa until——. He thought it a safe place to reside because it was so far from the land. He even built a house there. It is, I am told, a charming house. Hot and cold. Billiard and No Basement. Self-contained, Tudor and Bungalow, ten bed, two dressing, offices of the usual, drainage, commanding views, all that is desirable. But, alas for poor Otto! Salissa was not safe. He had forgotten that Megalia has a navy, a navy of one ship only, but that was enough. It cooked the goose of Otto, that Megalian Navy. The Prime Minister and the Commander of the Forces and the Admiral arrived at Salissa one day in the Navy. That was the end of Otto.”

“I hope,” said Gorman, “that the inhabitants of Salissa aren’t a bloodthirsty lot. I wouldn’t like to think of Miss Daisy being murdered. Besides, there’d be complications. The assassination of an odd prince doesn’t much matter to any one. But an American millionaire! The sudden death of a man like Donovan would mean a panic in Wall Street, and there’d have to be a fuss.”

“The inhabitants!” said the King. “They would not kill a baby. They are lambs, ducks, kids, doves. They bleat. They coo.”

“The Prime Minister,” said Gorman, “the Commander of the Forces and the Admiral could be squared, I suppose?”

“They would not want to kill her,” said the King. “She would not be their queen.”

“Sounds all right,” said Gorman, “if you can be sure of selling the whole thing without reservation of any kind to him. The royal rights are essential. Remember that. There must be no ‘subject-to-the-Crown-of-Megalia’ clause in the deed.”

“The Emperor need not know,” said the King. “Salissa is very small, and far, very far, from the land. If we keep the transaction shady—that is to say, dark—the Emperor will not tumble into it.”

Madame swallowed her last sip of brandy.

“The price?” she said.

“You cannot,” said Gorman, “expect as much for a small island like that as if you were able to sell the whole kingdom; the revenue can’t be anything much.”

“There is no revenue in Megalia either,” said the King.

“But Donovan is getting what he wants. His daughter will be a reigning queen. I daresay we’ll be able to screw him up to——”

“The price of that rope of pearls,” said Madame, “is ten thousand pounds.”

“Oh,” said Gorman, “we’ll get that and a bit over.”

“At once,” said Madame, “cash down. For if we have to wait and wait for months that imbecile girl will buy the pearls. Do not say no. I know it. I have a feeling. There is a presentiment. And if she gets those pearls I shall——”

Gorman did not want her to go mad again.

“Couldn’t you see Goldsturmer,” he said, “and arrange with him to give you the refusal of the pearls, say, three months from now?”

“Goldsturmer,” said Madame, “is a devil. He will not trust me for one day, although he knows Konrad well.”

Goldsturmer would probably have said that he refused to trust Madame because he knew Konrad well.

Gorman promised to lay the Salissa proposal before Donovan, and to get him, if possible, to pay at least ten thousand of the purchase money in advance.

“But above all,” said the King, “let him hold tight to his tongue, and you, my friend Gorman. This is no affair about which a song can be made in the market place. If the Emperor were to hear a whisper—Gorman, you do not know the Emperor. His ears are long. If he were to hear there would be an end. There would be no sale.”

“Donovan,” said Gorman, “would probably offer the Emperor five per cent. of the purchase money if there was any trouble.”

“Five per cent.!” said the King. “The Emperor! God in heaven!”

King Konrad Karl probably feared God in heaven very little. But there is no doubt that he had a nervous dread of the Emperor.

CHAPTER V

Donovan was, I believe, relieved when he heard that he could not buy the whole kingdom of Megalia. The price would have been enormous, but he would not have hesitated to pay it if, by paying, he would have got what he wanted. The more he looked into the business of kingship, the less he liked it. The idea of Court etiquette worried him. Donovan disliked dressing for dinner, a form of activity to which he was unaccustomed. He got it into his head that the father of the reigning monarch in a state like Megalia might be called on to wear uniforms, troublesome things with unusual buttons and straps, and change them two or three times a day. He feared that such a combination of exertion and worry would still further disorder the action of his heart. He saw no prospect of quiet indolence among a people which went in for revolutions as a pastime. Salissa, on the other hand, seemed almost an ideal spot.