"You dear—you darling!" he said to Miss Thorley and his breath came quickly and his eyes shone. He kissed her again. "You dearest! I've been the most patient lover on the footstool. Thank God, I was patient and just wouldn't be discouraged!"
Mary Rose caught his sleeve. "Are you the prince, Mr. Jerry?" she wanted to know and her eyes shone, too. "And is the spell broken? Have you driven away the old witch Independence? What did it?"
Mr. Jerry smiled at her flushed face. His own face was flushed and it had a wonderful radiance to Mary Rose as she looked up at him. "Love did it, Mary Rose." He squeezed her hand. "Love for you and love for me. Love's the only thing that can break old Independence's spell."
"Independence isn't a wicked witch, Mary Rose," interrupted Miss Thorley, who was squeezing Mary Rose's other hand.
"Isn't she?" Mary Rose was doubtful. Mr. Jerry had said she was a most wicked witch.
"A wicked witch would never make a girl brave and strong and self——"
"Self-supporting like George Washington," Mary Rose broke in jubilantly.
"Self-supporting," Miss Thorley accepted the word with a smile, "and keep her safe and busy until her prince came and she could be a real help to him. Independence isn't a wicked witch, Mary Rose. She's a girl's good fairy."
"Is she, Mr. Jerry?" Mary Rose had to have that theory indorsed before she could be quite sure. "Is she?"
"I expect she is," Mr. Jerry handsomely admitted. "Perhaps I've been mistaken in the old girl. Anyway we're friends now, good friends. And, Mary Rose," he went on grandly, "ask me what you will and you shall have it, even to the half of my kingdom. I can't give you the whole of it because the other half, the half that includes me, is now the property of the most beautiful princess in the world."