"I know. But something tells me that I am facing—darkness." He threw up his head. "Why should we talk of it? Let me tell you rather how much you have helped me with my book. If it had not been for you I could not have written it."
"I am glad if I have been of service." Her words sounded formal after the warmth of his own.
He laughed, with a touch of bitterness. "The Princess serves," he said, "always and always serves. She never grabs, as the rest of us do, at happiness."
"I shall grab when it comes," she said, smiling a little, "and I am happy now, because I am going to wear my pretty gown."
"Which reminds me," he said, quickly, and brought from his pocket a little box. "Your costume won't be complete without these. I bought them for you with the advance check which my publishers sent after they had read the first chapters of my book."
She opened the box. Within lay a little string of pearls. Not such pearls as Nancy had shown her, but milk-white none the less, with shining lovely lights.
"Oh," she gave a distressed cry, "you shouldn't have done it."
"Why not?"
"I can't accept them. Indeed I can't."
"I shall feel as if you had flung them in my face if you give them back to me," heatedly.