"Not if all the world had seen the look," moodily.

"Poor Jack, you are very unlucky!" Her voice was full of pity. "I
feel so sorry for you, it is all so impossible. And she loves you,
too!"

"How do you know?"

"I looked at her while she was looking at you."

"You have wonderful eyes."

"So I have been told. I wonder why she gave you that withered and
worm-eaten rose?"

"A whim," I said, staring at the rug. I wondered how she came to
surmise that it was Gretchen's rose? Intuition, perhaps.

"Do you love her well enough," asked Phyllis, plucking the lace on her
fan, "to sacrifice all the world for her, to give up all your own
happiness that she might become happy?"

"She never can be happy without me--if she loves me as I believe." I
admit that this was a selfish thought to express.

"Then, why is it impossible--your love and hers? If her love for you
is as great as you say it is, what is a King, a Prince, or a
principality to her?"

"It is none of those. It is because she has given her word, the word
of a Princess. What would you do in her place?" suddenly.

"I?" Phyllis leaned back among the cushions her eyes half-closed and a
smile on her lips. "I am afraid that if I loved you I should follow
you to the end of the world. Honor is a fine thing, but in her case it
is an empty word. If she broke this word for you, who would be
wronged? No one, since the Prince covets only her dowry and the King
desires only his will obeyed. Perhaps I do not understand what social
obligation means to these people who are born in purple."