“Nothing,” she replied. “A princess cannot marry lower than a full sarkar, which is a rank that you can attain only by performing some distinguished service for your country. Our only hope lies in accepting fate for the present, and in striving to get you a sarkarship before the wedding. And think of poor Bthuh! This will be as much of a blow to her and to Poblath as it is to us.”
But, to our surprise and consternation, Bthuh took the news very philosophically.
“The king’s will be done,” she said with a pretty little pout and shrug. “Myles Cabot is not a bad match after all; and, if rank prevents him from having the princess and prevents me from having the mango, why not solace ourselves with each other?”
And she glanced shyly up at me.
But somehow the idea did not appeal to me at all.
I must have looked at Bthuh with much the same expression of horror as the princess had worn the day of our first meeting at Wautoosa when I was still an unkempt earth man, for Bthuh laughed and said: “Come, come, Myles, do not look thus. Am I so horrible that you cannot learn to love me, even to please our gracious king?”
“Bthuh! Stop that foolishness at once!” ordered Lilla. “You make me sick.”
But Bthuh insolently replied: “Cannot I flirt with my own betrothed, O princess?” She left the room, smiling.
“She is merely trying to hide a broken heart,” I apologized.
Whereat Lilla wheeled on me furiously and said: “Don’t you dare stand up for that creature!”