He looked at Gorman, pathetically anxious for some crumb of encouragement.
"She's a queen, you know," said Phillips, "and an heiress, and all that. I'm only----I haven't a penny in the world except what I earn."
"I don't see why that should stop you," said Gorman.
"Do you really think--I mean wouldn't it be frightful cheek? It's not only her being a queen and all that; but other things. She's far too good for me in every way. I'm not clever or anything of that kind. And then there's her father."
"I shouldn't worry about him, if I were you," said Gorman. "What you've got to consider is not the father but the girl. If she's as much in love with you as you are with her----"
"She couldn't possibly be," said Phillips.
"I don't suppose she could," said Gorman. "Let's say half. If she's half as much in love as you are she'll manage the old man."
"I think----" said Phillips, "I really think she does like me a little."
Then he told Gorman something, not very much, about the scene in the cave. He spoke in broken sentences. He never quite completed any confidence, but Gorman got at something like the facts.
"If you've gone as far as that," he said. "If, as I understand, you've kissed her, then----I don't profess to give an expert opinion in matters of this kind, but I think you ought to ask her to marry you. In fact, it will be rather insulting if you don't."
"And you really think I have a chance? But you don't know. She might marry any one in the world. She's the most beautiful girl that any one has ever seen. Her eyes----"
Gorman knew that Miss Daisy Donovan was a nice, fresh-looking, plump young woman with no particular claim to be called beautiful. He stopped listening. His mind had suddenly fixed on a curious point in Phillips' story of the scene in the cave. He waited until the boy, like Rosalind's "very good lover," was "gravelled for lack of matter." Then he said:
"Where did you say that you were when that happened--the kissing, I mean?"
"In a cave," said Phillips. "In a huge cave. I had helped her to climb up on to the cisterns, and----"
"Cisterns!" said Gorman. "What the devil did you put cisterns into a cave for?"
"We didn't put them. They were there. Galvanized iron cisterns. Huge things. Oh, I promised I wouldn't tell any one about those cisterns. They're part of the secret of the island. The Queen made me promise. I wish I hadn't told you."