So potent was the spell of the prince's hospitality,
and so gracious the insistence with which he set before them the
strange and odourous dishes, that even Olivia, eager almost to tears
for news of her father, and Mrs. Hastings, as critical and
suspicious as some beetle with long antennae, might not refuse them.
As for Mr. Augustus Frothingham, although this might be Cagliostro's
spagiric food, or "extract of Saturn," for aught that his previous
experience equipped him to deny, yet he nibbled, and gazed, and was
constrained to nibble again.
When they had been served, Prince Tabnit abruptly began speaking,
the while turning the fine stem of his glass in his delicate
fingers.
"You do not know," he said simply, "where the island of Yaque lies?"
Mrs. Hastings sat erect.
"Yaque!" she exclaimed. "That was the name of the place where your
father was, Olivia. I know I remembered it because it wasn't like
the man What's-his-name in _As You Like It_, and because it didn't
begin with a J."
"The island is my home," Prince Tabnit continued, "and now, for the
first time, I find myself absent from it.
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