e cabin.

CHAPTER XXII

THE EVENTS OF MONDAY

Kasia did not see the Prince again. That ingenuous young man had spent a
most uncomfortable half hour with the doughty Admiral, whose language
had been both lucid and emphatic, and who had opened the discussion, and
spiked the Prince's guns at the very start, as it were, by producing the
paper sealed with the Imperial seal.

"I would call your attention especially to this clause," said Pachmann,
and placed his finger upon the words, "all members of my family." "It
was not placed there by accident, I assure you. You understand its
meaning?"

The Prince nodded sullenly, as he handed the paper back.

"Your father," Pachmann continued, replacing it in his pocket, "foresaw
that some difficulty such as this might arise. As you know, his
confidence in you is not great."

The Prince flushed and opened his lips angrily; but closed them again
without speaking.

Pachmann smiled unpleasantly.

"I can guess what you wish to say," he said. "You would remind me that
you are a Hohenzollern, a Prince of the blood, a scion of the house to
which I, a petty member of the inferior nobility, owe allegiance. That I
do not permit myself to forget. But in this affair, by virtue of this
paper, I stand in place of your royal father. He would not hesitate to
rebuke you, and neither shall I. What was it you were saying to Miss
Vard?"

And the Prince, after a moment's inward struggle, repeated the
conversation, while Pachmann listened frowningly.

"You have been most indiscreet," he said severely, when the Prince had
finished. "How much harm you have done I cannot say--but I must hasten
to undo it. I do not understand you. You know how important this affair
is--you are a good German!--and yet you go about talking in this
fashion! It is enough to drive one mad! If your father learned of it, I
fear he would think it necessary to punish you with great severity. I
shall not report it--but on one condition: you must give me your word to
discuss affairs of state with no one, to make no chance acquaintances,
and to see this girl or her father only in my presence."

And so deeply grounded was the habit of obedience, so profound his
respect even for his father's signature, that the Prince promised.
Besides, he had no wish to spend a year or more in some second-rate
fortress; and he resolved to watch himself most warily, until this
annoying business was at an end and he was back again in Be