"What other girl?" St. George blankly murmured.
And at this, Amory turned away with a look that could be made to mean whatever Amory meant.
On went the imperial train faring back to Med over the road lately stirred to shining dust by the wheels of Olivia's auto. Olivia's auto. St. George was secretly saying over the words with a kind of ecstatic non-comprehension, when the prince spoke:
"That," he said, "may explain why an American has been able to govern us. Chance crowned him, but he made himself king."
Prince Tabnit hesitated and his eyes wandered—and those of St. George followed—to a far winding dot in that opal valley, a mere speck of silver with a prick of pink, fleeing in a cloud of sunny dust.
"I do not know if you will know what I mean," said the prince, "but hers is the spirit, and the spirit of her father, the king, which Yaque had never known. It is the spirit which we of Phœnicia seem to have lost since the wealth of the world accumulated at her ports and she gave her trust to the hands of mariners and mercenaries, and later bowed to the conqueror. It is the spirit that not all the continental races, I fancy, have for endowment, but yours possesses in rich measure. For this we would exchange half that we have achieved."
St. George nodded, glowing.
"It is a great tribute, your Highness," he said simply, and in his heart he laid it at Olivia's feet.
Thereafter, in the long ride to Melita, during luncheon upon a high white terrace overlooking the sailless sea, and in the hours on the unforgetable roads of the islands, St. George, while incommunicable marvels revealed themselves linked with incommunicable beauty, sat in the prince's motor, his eyes searching the horizon for that fleeing speck of silver and pink. It did not appear again. And when the train of the prince rolled into the yard of the Palace of the Litany it trembled upon St. George's lips to ask whether the formalities of the court would permit him that day to scale the skies and call upon the royal household.
"For whatever he says, I've got to do," thought St. George, "but no matter what he says, I shall go. Doesn't Amory realize that we've been more than twelve hours on this island, and that nothing has been done?"