Prince Rajput Singh stirred uneasily in his chair and leaned forward.
“In time, sweet nightingale,” he said suavely. “I must make a continuation of my lectures and then I must visit your wonderful California. It will please me to be your honored guest at your home there. Then, when we have tired of the sunshine and the flowers we shall make long journey to my home-land. The spell of this new country is on me and until it passes I must remain here. Besides, I must await a salutation from my father. That breach must be healed, fair bul-bul.”
Miss Fannie sighed resignedly.
“Whatever you say, Rajjy dear,” she said. “You shall stay in California as long as you wish and I’ll write to that father of yours if you don’t hear from him. I think it’s terrible the way the Nazir is treating the prince, don’t you, Mr. Martin?”
The bridegroom-to-be coughed nervously and rose quickly from his chair, breaking into the conversation before Jimmy could stammer a reply.
“Fair one,” he said, gripping her by the arm, “my friend tires of these much repeated references to my own poor self. We have more important matters to discuss. Let us make busy with them.”
Thus pressed, Jimmy enlarged upon the detailed arrangements which he had completed for the exciting events of the following day, arrangements which included provisions for everything from the marriage license to the formal and ceremonious delivery to all the newspaper offices of elaborately engraved announcement cards by the Hindu attendants of Prince Rajput Singh. Miss Fannie gushed her approval of the program and was positively gurgling with delight as she escorted him to the door.
“The prince is so proud,” she said, when she was out of ear-shot of that dignitary, “that he can’t bear to have me say anything about the perfectly outrageous way in which he has been treated by his father. I think it’s perfectly scandalous, don’t you?”
“I’m not very clear about it myself,” returned the press agent guardedly. “What’d the old gink—I mean the old man do?”
“Oh, dear, I thought you knew. Why, he cut off his allowance for a perfectly trivial something or other—he’s never told me exactly—and here he was on the verge of being unable to keep up appearances and the dignity of his station. It must have been most humiliating. Poor Rajjy cried when I forced it out of him. He’d been so depressed that I knew something must be the matter, and I just made him tell me. I was so glad to help.”