The elder of the two, he who had first arrived, was placed directly facing me; the other was set on his left hand. Both, like the man in the butler’s pantry, seemed to be intently listening; and on the face of the second I thought I could perceive the marks of fear. Oddly enough, however, when they came to speak, the parts were found to be reversed.

‘I assure you,’ said the elder gentleman, ‘I not only heard the slamming of a door, but the sound of very guarded footsteps.’

‘Your highness was certainly deceived,’ replied the other. ‘I am endowed with the acutest hearing, and I can swear that not a mouse has rustled.’ Yet the pallor and contraction of his features were in total discord with the tenor of his words.

His highness (whom, of course, I readily divined to be Prince Florizel) looked at his companion for the least fraction of a second; and though nothing shook the easy quiet of his attitude, I could see that he was far from being duped. ‘It is well,’ said he; ‘let us dismiss the topic. And now, sir, that I have very freely explained the sentiments by which I am directed, let me ask you, according to your promise, to imitate my frankness.’

‘I have heard you,’ replied the other, ‘with great interest.’

‘With singular patience,’ said the prince politely.

‘Ay, your highness, and with unlooked-for sympathy,’ returned the young man. ‘I know not how to tell the change that has befallen me. You have, I must suppose, a charm, to which even your enemies are subject.’ He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and visibly blanched. ‘So late!’ he cried. ‘Your highness—God knows I am now speaking from the heart—before it be too late, leave this house!’

The prince glanced once more at his companion, and then very deliberately shook the ash from his cigar. ‘That is a strange remark,’ said he; ‘and á propos de bottes, I never continue a cigar when once the ash is fallen; the spell breaks, the soul of the flavour flies away, and there remains but the dead body of tobacco; and I make it a rule to throw away that husk and choose another.’ He suited the action to the words.

‘Do not trifle with my appeal,’ resumed the young man, in tones that trembled with emotion. ‘It is made at the price of my honour and to the peril of my life. Go—go now! lose not a moment; and if you have any kindness for a young man, miserably deceived indeed, but not devoid of better sentiments, look not behind you as 

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