he floor. In an
instant she was at his side.

"Give me your hand--_comrade_!" she said, with a peculiar intonation.
"Oh! if you only knew how I longed to meet the right men. Uncle is a
convert--no, hardly a backslider; but he swears by the regenerating
process instead of violence. Formerly the cleverest living chemist, he
now--oh! I shame to say it--he now indulges in firework displays instead
of manufacturing bombs with which to execute tyrants." She slowly
dropped his hand and her eyes wore a clairvoyant expression. He was
astounded.

"Fireworks! Doesn't the prince hold by his old faith--he, a pupil of
Bakounine, Netschajew, and Kropotkin?" Just then the prince came in,
bearing a tray. He seemed happy.

"Here, sit down, dear sir, and partake of a few things. We live so far
from civilization that we seldom get a good chicken. But eggs I can
offer you, eggs and ham, cooked by me on an electric machine."

"You have no servants?" Gerald ventured.

"Not one. I can't trust them near my--toys. The princess plays Chopin
mazourkas after she makes the beds in the morning, and in the afternoon
she is my assistant in the laboratory." Again the young man looked about
him. If the room was a laboratory, where were the retorts, the oven, the
phials, the jars, the usual apparatus of a modern chemist? He saw
nothing, except an old-fashioned electric fan and a few dusty books. The
fireworks--were those overgrown wheels and gaunt windmills and gas-house
the secret of the prince's self-banishment to this dreary coast? What
dreams did he seek to incarnate on this strand, in this queer tower,
locked away from the world with a charming princess--a fairy princess
whose heart beat with love for the oppressed, in whose hand he might
some time see the blazing torch of freedom? He, himself, was enveloped
by the hypnotism of the place. Mila spoke:--

"I fear I must leave you. I am studying to-night and--I go early to
rest. Pray dine as well as you can, with such a chef." She smiled
mischievously at her uncle, courtesied in peasant fashion to the
bewildered Gerald, who put out his hand, fain to touch hers, and
disappeared. The prince gazed inquiringly at the young man.

"Revolutionists soon become friends, do they not? The Princess Mila is
part Russian, part Roumanian,--my sister married a Roumanian,--hence her
implacable political attitude. I can't lead her back to civilized
thinking. She sees war in the moon, sun, and stars. And I--I have