An aide-de-camp with liquid black eyes, which wrought havoc amongst the impressionable women of other nations, greeted Lord Castleford and led him through to another door flanked by footmen.

It was opened and Lord Castleford saw King Otho and Queen Amalie waiting for him at the far end.

He advanced and, as he bowed, the aide-de-camp announced,

“His Excellency, Lord Castleford, Minister Plenipotentiary for Great Britain, Your Majesty!”

King Otho had thickened since he came to the throne, but he still had the Bavarian good looks that had swept so many beautiful women unprotestingly into his arms.

“Welcome to Greece!” he said in English.

Lord Castleford bent over his hand with the conventional,

“You are very gracious, Sire.”

The Queen held out her hand.

She had aged more obviously than her husband, but she was still, Lord Castleford noted, undoubtedly an attractive woman.

“We have been looking forward to your arrival, my Lord,” she said. “It is a long time since last we saw you.”

“It is indeed, ma’am!” Lord Castleford agreed.

“We have a guest staying with us,” the Queen said, “who is very anxious to make your acquaintance.”

As she spoke, she glanced towards a door that stood behind them and, as if at an arranged signal, a woman came into the salon.

Lord Castleford glanced at her indifferently and then suddenly he was still.

It was Yamina advancing towards him, a very different Yamina from the one he had last seen slipping into the painted trunk in the cabin of The Himalaya.

She was wearing a large crinoline draped with pink chiffon, caught with little bunches of water lilies.

Her bodice, which revealed the curves of her exquisite figure, was buttoned to the neck. Her waist was very small and her hair was arranged in fashionable ringlets on either side of her face.

She looked exquisitely lovely and yet, as her eyes met Lord Castleford’s, he thought there was an expression of apprehension in them as if she was afraid that he would be angry with her.

“I wish to present, my Lord,” the Queen said, “Her Serene Highness, Princess Yamina Yurievski. I think you met her late father, the Grand Duke Ivan, when you were in Russia.”

It was impossible for Lord Castleford to move or speak.

He could only look at Yamina and, as if she understood what he was feeling, she turned her head with an expression of pleading on her face towards the King.

He smiled as he said to Lord Castleford,

“Yamina, whom I have known since she was a child, has brought me a difficult problem, my Lord. She says she wishes to marry you immediately! She also tells me that you feel in the circumstances that you must resign from your position as British Minister.”

“That is my intention, Sire,” Lord Castleford replied.

“I think it would be a great loss to Greece, if we should lose you at this difficult moment in our history.”