d Princess Delgrado.
To her consternation, the older woman stopped and spoke.

"I am sorry I missed the delightful little concert your friend provided
in the dining car last night," she said in French, and her voice had
that touch of condescension with which a society leader knows how to
dilute her friendliness when addressing a singer or musician. "My
husband and I retired early, to our great loss, I hear. Are you
traveling beyond Vienna? If so, and you give us another musical this
evening----"

"There is some mistake," faltered Joan, unconsciously answering in
English. "People who do not know Monsieur Poluski often take him for an
operatic artiste. He is a painter. He sings only to amuse himself, and
seldom waits to consider whether the time and place are well chosen."

"But, gracious me!" cried the Princess, amazed to find that Joan spoke
English as to the manner born. "Some one said you were Polish. I doubted
my eyes when I looked at you; but your companion--well, he might be
anything."

"Both he and I earn our bread by painting pictures," said Joan. "Indeed,
we are now bound for Delgratz to carry out a commission."

"Delgratz! How extraordinary! I too am going there. It is so disturbed
at present that it is the last place in the world I should have
suspected of artistic longings. May I ask who has sent for you?"

Luckily, in the bustle and semiobscurity of the station, Princess
Delgrado did not pay much heed to the furious blushing of the pretty
girl who had aroused her interest. It was impossible to regard one whom
she now believed to be an American like herself as being in any way
concerned with the intrigues that centered in the capital of Kosnovia,
and she attributed Joan's confusion to the pardonable error that arose
from the talk Prince Michael brought from the smoking car.

But what was Joan to answer? She could not blurt out to Alec's mother
the contents of that exceedingly plainspoken epistle now reposing in her
pocket. For one mad instant she wondered what would happen if she said:

"I am being sent to Delgratz by people who wish to drive Alec out of the
kingdom, and I am really considering whether or not I ought to marry
him."

Then she lifted her head valiantly, with just that wood-nymph flinging
back of rebellious hair that Alec was thinking of while riding to his
Castle of Care after a long day in the saddle.

"There is nothing unusual in my being chosen to copy a picture," she
said. "Art