smoldering day on the hilltops. The vermilion deepened into charred
umber, and soon the west was a blackened grate; another day vanished in
ashes. The filmy golden pallor of twilight now blurred the landscape;
the wind increased with a gayer, madder, keener touch; the lake went
billowing in shadows of gray and black, and one by one the lamps of the
city sprang up, vivid as sparks from an anvil. Now and again the thin,
clear music of the band drifted across from the park. The fountain
glimmered in the Platz, the cafes began to glitter, carriages rolled
hither and thither. The city had taken on its colorful night.

"Well, here's another day gone," he mused, rubbing his elbow, which
was yet stiff. "I am anxious to know what that sinner is doing. Has
he pulled up stakes or has he stayed to get a whack at me? I hope he's
gone; he's a bad Indian, and if anything, he'll want my scalp in his
belt before he goes. Hang it! It seems that I have poked my head into
every bear trap in the kingdom. I may not get out of the next one. How
clever I was, to be sure! It all comes from loving the dramatic. I am a
diplomat, but nobody would guess it at first sight. To talk to a man as
I talked to him, and to threaten! He said I was young; I was, but I grow
older every day. And the wise word now is, don't imitate the bull of
the trestle," as he recalled an American cartoon which at that day was
having vogue in the American colony in Vienna.

"I like adventure, I know, but I'm going to give the Colonel a wide
berth. If he sees me first, off the board I go. Where will he go--to the
duchy? I trust not; we both can not settle in that territory; it's too
small. And yet I am bound to go back; it is not my promise so much as
it is my cursed curiosity. By George!" rubbing his elbow gently. "And to
think, Maurice, that you might not have witnessed this sunset but for
a bit of fencing trickery. What a turn that picture of Inez gave me! I
knew him in a second--and like the ass I was, I told him so. And to meet
him here, almost a left-handed king; no wonder I did not recognize him.

"I should like to come in on Fitzgerald to-night. His father must have
had a crazy streak in him somewhere. Four millions to throw away;
humph! And who the deuce has those certificates?" He lolled against
the parapet. "If I had four millions, and if Prince Frederick had
disappeared for good.... Why are things so jumbled up, at sixes and
sevens? We are all human beings; why s