nights, don't you?" Pat cooed.

"They are very useful at times," the Prince rejoined. "What would you say if, in the sweet darkness, I found a pair of sweet lips."

"Oh, Your Highness! You wouldn't dare!" Pat exclaimed, in a disturbed voice. "I've always found you so--so perfectly trustworthy in the dark. Besides, taking undue advantage of a helpless young lady is only done by bores of the lower classes."

"Oh dear, no!" the Prince responded. "You're quite wrong there. The most extraordinary things happen to people in our class. Sort of dignified things, you know." Then he laid his hand on hers. "My dear," he went on, "I think you have offered every excuse there is. What I want now is to be told exactly what you think of me."

"I will also tell you that, tonight--after dinner," Pat replied, evasively.

"But I cannot--I cannot possess my soul in patience," he said. "I must know now--at this very moment. But if you are cruel, and spurn me--you, so gentle-souled, who would never intentionally hurt a fly, I know,--I will leap off the cliff. Men of my race, in love or in war, always act on the spur of the moment. You don't want me to jump off your cliff?"

"Listen, Your Highness," answered Pat. "This is what I want you to do for me. Just nothing at all."

"I'm afraid you'll have to grin and bear it--this deed of violence. But it will be a happy death."

"It'll put us all to a lot of trouble," Pat sighed.

"That's true. I hadn't thought of that. You'll have to buy orchids and go to my funeral."

"No; I'll have to go to the autopsy, first," she corrected him.

To my great astonishment, she seemed perfectly informed on that subject, probably from reading so many murder mystery stories.

"Very well," the Prince concurred; "perhaps it would be foolish for me to jump off your cliff. Some perfectly innocent person, like--well, like your Uncle Livingston--might be accused of pushing me off, and there would be a murder trial, and all those horrid newspaper reporters and photographers would make your life miserable. No; I cannot let the innocent suffer."At this juncture, their voices trailed off 

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