"Silly boy!" she said. "You have nothing to be frightened about, I can assure you."
"I am not frightened," Cecil answered. "I don't think that I was ever a coward. All the same, there are some things about this fellow which I don't quite understand."
The Princess laughed as she swept from the room.
"Don't be foolish, Cecil," she said. "Remember that we are all here, and that nothing can go wrong unless we lose our nerve."
Forrest found the Princess alone a little later in the evening, waiting in the hall for the dinner-gong. He drew her into a corner, under pretext of showing her one of the old engravings, dark with age, which hung upon the wall.
"Ena," he said, "I suppose that you trust Cecil de la Borne? You haven't any fear about him, eh?"
The Princess shrugged her shoulders.
"No!" she answered. "He is a coward at heart, but he has enough vanity, I believe, to keep him from doing anything foolish. All the same, I think it is wiser not to leave him alone here."
"He would not stay," Forrest remarked. "He told me so only this morning."
"You suggested leaving?" the Princess asked.