_, so, from the Wohenhoffens' point of view, do the
barber and the horse-leech. In this house, the Aristocracy of Talent
dines with the butler."

"Is the Countess such a snob?" she asked.

"No; she's an Austrian. They draw the line so absurdly tight in
Austria."

"Well, then, you leave me no alternative," she argued, "but to conclude
that Victor Field is a tremendous swell. Didn't you notice, I bobbed him
a curtsey?"

"I took the curtsey as a tribute to my Oriental magnificence," he
confessed. "Field doesn't sound like an especially patrician name. I'd
give anything to discover who you are. Can't you be induced to tell me?
I'll bribe, entreat, threaten--I'll do anything you think might persuade
you."

"I'll tell you at once, if you'll own up that you're Victor Field," said
she.

"Oh, I'll own up that I'm Queen Elizabeth if you'll tell me who you are.
The end justifies the means."

"Then you _are_ Victor Field?" she pursued him eagerly.

"If you don't mind suborning perjury, why should I mind committing it?"
he reflected. "Yes. And now, who are you?"

"No; I must have an unequivocal avowal," she stipulated. "Are you or are
you not Victor Field?"

"Let us put it at this," he proposed, "that I'm a good serviceable
imitation; an excellent substitute when the genuine article is not
procurable."

"Of course, your real name isn't anything like Victor Field," she
declared, pensively.

"I never said it was. But I admire the way in which you give with one
hand and take back with the other."

"Your real name--" she began. "Wait a moment--Yes, now I have it. Your
real name--It's rather long. You don't think it will bore you?"

"Oh, if it's really my real name, I daresay I'm hardened to it," said
he.

"Your real name is Louis Charles Ferdinand Stanislas John Joseph
Emmanuel Maria Anna."

"Mercy upon me," he cried, "what a name! You ought to have broken it to
me in instalments. And it's all Christian name at that. Can't you spare
me just a little rag of a surname, for decency's sake?" he pleaded.

"The surnames of royalties don't matter, Monseigneur," she said, with a
flourish.

"Royalties? What? Dear me, here's rapid promotion! I am royal now! And a
moment ago I was a little penny-a-liner in London."

"_L'un n'empeche pas l'autre._ Have you never heard the story of the
Invisible Prince?" she asked.

"I adore irrelevancy," said he. "I seem to have read something about an
invisible prince, when I was young