ent. "If it is not indiscreet of a parent to betray some interest in
a son's prospective happiness, may I venture again to inquire who Miss
Joan Vernon is?"

"I think I answered you."

"In general terms. Feminine divinity and charm should be the
characteristics of all brides; but these delectable beings do not enter
the world fully formed, like Venus Aphrodite newly risen from the sea of
Cyprus."

"Oh, to me it suffices that she exists, and is Joan. I have known her a
whole year, during her student life in Paris, in fact. Your simile was
well chosen, Monseigneur. Aphrodite came with the spring, and so came
Joan."

"And before Paris?"

"The New England section of America, I believe. Her mother died when
Joan was a child; her father was in the navy and was drowned."

"An artist, you say?"

"Artistic would be the better description. She is too rich ever to paint
well."

"Rich!"

"As artists go. She has an income of two hundred pounds a year."

"Ah, bah!"

"Don't be so contemptuous of five thousand francs. They go a long
way--with care. I believe that my dear Joan spends all her money on
dress, and keeps soup in the pot by copying pictures. But she will make
a lovely Queen. _Saperlotte!_ I must paint her in purple and ermine."

Yielding to the spell of the vision thus conjured up, Felix forgot his
racked nerves and sang lustily a stanza from "Masaniello." Prince
Michael flung out of the room to meet his son; but the strains followed
him down the stairs.

Yet Poluski was thinking while he sang, and the burden of his thought
was that this anxious father had asked him no word as to the scene in
that bullet swept room, nor the means whereby Alec and his friends were
snatched from death.

Very different was the meeting between Joan and Princess Delgrado. The
panic stricken mother, scarce crediting the assurance given her by the
President's family that there were no grounds for the disquieting rumors
that arose from Sobieski's appeal for help, was in an agony of dread
when the first undoubted version of the true occurrence was brought by
Stampoff's courier.

The arrival of Joan, of one who had actually been in her son's company
until the danger was passed, though helping to dispel her terror,
aroused a consuming desire to learn exactly what had happened. Joan, of
course, could only describe the siege and their state of suspense until
the soldiers cleared the street of the would-be assassins. As to the
motive