"Wise men," said John, "dream of it as the highest."
She shook her head.
"A marriage with her cousin would be an end to all romance for ever. She was thinking a little while ago, I believe, of marrying a plain commoner, the nephew of a farmer. That would have been indeed romantic. Now, I hear, she is considering, a future member of your English House of Lords."
"Wouldn't even that be rather romantic—if a step down constitutes romance?" John suggested.
"Oh, a British peer is scarcely a step down," she returned. "Besides, there are people who don't care—what is the expression?—twopence about rank."
"When I said that," John explained, "I had no inkling that her rank was so exalted."
"Did you think she was the daughter of a cobbler?" Maria Dolores quickly, with some haughtiness, inquired.
"I thought she was a daughter of the stars," John answered.
"And you feared her name was Smitti," she said, haughtiness dissolving in mirth. "I will never tell you what she feared that yours was."
"See," said John, "how they are hanging the heavens with banners. It must be in honour of some great impending event."