e innocently. "I
shall have to greet your excellency from this time forth as a great
ruler."

"Only as a regent of the empire, your highness," answered the
ambassador, seconding, a little apparently harmless joke. "I am only my
father-in-law's executor, and guardian of my wife's younger brother, who
will assume the entire management of the works as soon as he reaches his
majority."

"Ah, indeed. The son will have to learn to keep a watchful eye over his
inheritance. It is really astonishing to me to see what in these days
can be accomplished by the energy of a single man. It is all the more
creditable, too, when he, like the father of our dear baroness here,
springs from the people. I think I heard that, but I may be mistaken!"

Princess Sophie knew well that the ambassador, with his old Prussian
noble ancestry would find this rehearsal of his father-in-law's station
in life anything but pleasant, and it gave her great satisfaction to
note that none of the little group who surrounded her, lost a word of
the conversation, which was meant to humiliate the lovely new comer.
Baroness von Wallmoden drew herself up proudly as she replied:

"Your highness has been correctly informed. My father was of the people,
and entered the capital a poor boy with no means whatever at his
command. He had many and great struggles, and worked for years as a
simple artisan, before he could lay even the foundations for his great
undertaking."

"How proudly Frau von Wallmoden says that," cried the princess laughing.
"O I love such childlike attachment, above everything. And Herr
Stahlberg--or was it von Stahlberg? The great industrial heads often get
titles of nobility."

"My father took no such title, your highness," said Adelheid, meeting
the other's glance quietly but directly. "It was offered to him but he
refused it."

The ambassador pressed his lips tightly together; he could not forbear
thinking this last utterance of his wife very undiplomatic. The
countenance of the princess assumed at once an irritated expression, and
she answered, with an unconcealed sneer:

"Well, it is at least fortunate that this aversion was not inherited by
the daughter. Your excellency will know how to appreciate it. Please
give me your arm, Egon. I want to find my brother."

She bowed coldly to those around her as she took the arm of her nephew,
in whose face was plainly written:

"Now it is my turn."

He did not deceive himself, his aunt had no