d a
glassful of amber liquid. Immelan took it, sipped it appreciatively, and
lit a cigarette.

"Your man, Prince," he acknowledged, "mixes his vermouths wonderfully."

"I am glad that what he does meets with your approval," was the
courteous reply. "He came to me from one of your royal palaces. I simply
told him that I wished my guests to have of the best."

"Yet you never touch this sort of drink yourself," Immelan observed
curiously.

The Prince shook his head.

"Sometimes I take wine," he said. "That is generally at night. A few
evenings ago, for instance," he went on, with a reminiscent smile, "I
drank Chateau Yquem, smoked Egyptian cigarettes, ate some muscatel
grapes, and read 'Pippa Passes.' That was one of my banquets."

"As a matter of fact," Immelan remarked thoughtfully, "you are far more
western in thought than in habit. The temperance of the East is in your
blood."

"I find that my manner of life keeps the brain clear," Prince Shan said
slowly. "I can see the truth sometimes when it is not very apparent. I
saw the truth last night, Immelan, when I sent Sen Lu to die."

Immelan's expression was indescribable. He sat with his mouth wide open.
The hand which held his glass shook. He stared across the bowl of lilies
to where his host was looking up through the smoke towards the ceiling.

"Sen Lu was a traitor," the latter went on, "a very foolish man who with
one act of treachery wiped out the memory of a lifetime of devotion. In
the end he told the truth, and now he has paid his debt."

"What do you mean?" Immelan demanded, in a voice which he attempted in
vain to control. "How was Sen Lu a traitor?"

"Sen Lu," the Prince explained, "was in the pay of those who sought to
know more of my business than I chose to tell--who sought, indeed, to
anticipate my own judgment. When they gathered from him, and, alas! from
my sweet but frail little friend Nita, that the chances were against my
signing a certain covenant, they came to what, even now, seems to me a
strange decision. They decided that I must die. There I fail wholly to
follow the workings of your mind, Immelan. How was my death likely to
serve your purpose?"

Immelan was absolutely speechless. Three times he opened his lips, only
to close them again. Some instinct seemed to tell him that his companion
had more to say. He sat there as though mesmerised. Meanwhile, the
Prince lit another cigarette.

"A blunder, believe me, Immelan," he continue