"Ah, no," answered Amory with engaging candour, "I don't. But I—happened up this way." Amory paused a little desperately. In that soft light he could not tell positively whether this was Miss Holland or that other figure of silver and rose which he had seen in the throne room. The blue gown was not interpretative. If she was Miss Holland it would be very shabby of him to herald the surprise. Naturally, St. George would appreciate doing that himself. "I'm looking about a bit," he neatly temporized.
Antoinette suddenly looked away over the terrace as her eyes met his, smiling behind their pince-nez. Amory was good to look at, and he had never been more so than as he towered above her on the steps of the king's palace. Who was he—but who was he? Antoinette wondered rapidly. Had a warship arrived? Was Yaque taken? Or had—she turned eyes, round with sudden fear, upon Amory.
"Did Prince Tabnit send you?" she demanded.
Amory laughed.
"No, indeed," he said. Amory had once lived in the South, and he accented the "no" very takingly. "I came myself," he volunteered.
"I thought," explained Antoinette, "that maybe he opened a door in the dark, and you walked out. It is rather funny that you should be here."
"You are here, you know," suggested Amory doubtfully.
"But I may be a cannibal princess," Antoinette demurely pointed out. It was not that her astonishment was decreasing; but why—modernity and the democracy spoke within her—waste the possibilities of a situation merely because it chances to be astonishing? Moments of mystery are rare enough, in all conscience; and when they do arrive all the world misses them by trying to understand them. Which is manifestly ungrateful and stupid. They do these things better in Yaque.
"You maybe," agreed Amory evenly, "though I don't know that I ever met a desert island princess in a dinner frock. But then, I am a beginner in desert islands."
"Are you an American?" inquired Antoinette earnestly.