Lyle, is there not something very chaste and beautiful in the
aspect of an old maid?"

Lady Lyle looked up sharply. She had an idea that both she and her
daughters were being quizzed, and she had some difficulty to
control her rising temper.

"Then do you call the Princess an old maid?" she demanded.

Lady Fulkeward looked amused; her son laughed outright. But the
Doctor's face was perfectly composed.

"I don't know what else I can call her," he said, with a
thoughtful air. "She is no longer in her teens, and she has too
much voluptuous charm for an ingenue. Still, I admit, you would
scarcely call her 'old' except in the parlance of the modern
matrimonial market. Our present-day roues, you know, prefer their
victims young, and I fancy the Princess Ziska would be too old and
perhaps too clever for most of them. Personally speaking, she does
not impress me as being of any particular age, but as she is not
married, and is, so to speak, a maid fully developed, I am
perforce obliged to call her an old maid."

"She wouldn't thank you for the compliment," said Lady Lyle with a
spiteful grin.

"I daresay not," responded the Doctor blandly, "but I imagine she
has very little personal vanity. Her mind is too preoccupied with
something more important than the consideration of her own good
looks."