ould Mr. Hicks, who found the Prince more democratic than
anyone he had ever known at Apex City, and was immensely interested by
the fact that their spectacles came from the same optician.

But it was, above all, the artistic tendencies of the Prince and his
mother which had conquered the Hickses. There was fascination in the
thought that, among the rabble of vulgar uneducated royalties who
overran Europe from Biarritz to the Engadine, gambling, tangoing,
and sponging on no less vulgar plebeians, they, the unobtrusive
and self-respecting Hickses, should have had the luck to meet this
cultivated pair, who joined them in gentle ridicule of their own
frivolous kinsfolk, and whose tastes were exactly those of the
eccentric, unreliable and sometimes money-borrowing persons who had
hitherto represented the higher life to the Hickses.

Now at last Mrs. Hicks saw the possibility of being at once artistic and
luxurious, of surrendering herself to the joys of modern plumbing and
yet keeping the talk on the highest level. "If the poor dear Princess
wants to dine at the Nouveau Luxe why shouldn't we give her that
pleasure?" Mrs. Hicks smilingly enquired; "and as for enjoying her
buttered scones like a baby, as she says, I think it's the sweetest
thing about her."

Coral Hicks did not join in this chorus; but she accepted, with her
curious air of impartiality, the change in her parents' manner of life,
and for the first time (as Nick observed) occupied herself with her
mother's toilet, with the result that Mrs. Hicks's outline became
firmer, her garments soberer in hue and finer in material; so that,
should anyone chance to detect the daughter's likeness to her mother,
the result was less likely to be disturbing.

Such precautions were the more needful--Lansing could not but note
because of the different standards of the society in which the Hickses
now moved. For it was a curious fact that admission to the intimacy of
the Prince and his mother--who continually declared themselves to be
the pariahs, the outlaws, the Bohemians among crowned heads nevertheless
involved not only living in Palace Hotels but mixing with those who
frequented them. The Prince's aide-de-camp--an agreeable young man of
easy manners--had smilingly hinted that their Serene Highnesses, though
so thoroughly democratic and unceremonious, were yet accustomed to
inspecting in advance the names of the persons whom their hosts wished
to invite with them; and Lans