g to the table on
which her correspondence sometimes awaited her.

There was no letter; but the morning papers, still unread, lay at hand,
and glancing listlessly down the column which chronicles the doings of
society, she read:

"After an extended cruise in the AEgean and the Black Sea on their
steam-yacht Ibis, Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Hicks and their daughter are
established at the Nouveau Luxe in Rome. They have lately had the honour
of entertaining at dinner the Reigning Prince of Teutoburger-Waldhain
and his mother the Princess Dowager, with their suite. Among those
invited to meet their Serene Highnesses were the French and Spanish
Ambassadors, the Duchesse de Vichy, Prince and Princess Bagnidilucca,
Lady Penelope Pantiles--" Susy's eye flew impatiently on over the long
list of titles--"and Mr. Nicholas Lansing of New York, who has been
cruising with Mr. and Mrs. Hicks on the Ibis for the last few months."

XX

THE Mortimer Hickses were in Rome; not, as they would in former times
have been, in one of the antiquated hostelries of the Piazza di Spagna
or the Porta del Popolo, where of old they had so gaily defied fever
and nourished themselves on local colour; but spread out, with all the
ostentation of philistine millionaires, under the piano nobile ceilings
of one of the high-perched "Palaces," where, as Mrs. Hicks shamelessly
declared, they could "rely on the plumbing," and "have the privilege of
over-looking the Queen Mother's Gardens."

It was that speech, uttered with beaming aplomb at a dinner-table
surrounded by the cosmopolitan nobility of the Eternal City, that had
suddenly revealed to Lansing the profound change in the Hicks point of
view.

As he looked back over the four months since he had so unexpectedly
joined the Ibis at Genoa, he saw that the change, at first insidious
and unperceived, dated from the ill-fated day when the Hickses had run
across a Reigning Prince on his travels.

Hitherto they had been proof against such perils: both Mr. and Mrs.
Hicks had often declared that the aristocracy of the intellect was the
only one which attracted them. But in this case the Prince possessed an
intellect, in addition to his few square miles of territory, and to one
of the most beautiful Field Marshal's uniforms that had ever encased a
royal warrior. The Prince was not a warrior, however; he was stooping,
pacific and spectacled, and his possession of the uniform had been
revealed to Mrs. Hicks onl