insisting--"

Markeld took the card, glanced at it, and read:

_"M. Andre Tellier, Paris. Agent du Service de Surete"_

Beneath this was a pencilled line--"Concerning the question of the
succession."

The Prince stared at it a moment in some astonishment, not unmixed with
irritation. What could this fellow know concerning the succession? It
was most probably simply an impertinence. The Paris police were famous
for impertinences.

Glueck started for the door; since his master's boyhood, he had watched
over him, attended him--he could read his countenance like an open book.
The Prince glanced up.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"I go to tell the imbecile that Your Highness will not see him,"
responded Glueck, impassively, his hand on the knob.

The Prince smiled. He had a great fondness for his old retainer.

"Wait," he said. "We must not permit ourselves to be governed by first
impressions, nor swayed by prejudice. It is just possible that this
fellow has something to tell me which I ought to hear. I can't afford to
disregard any chance. So inform M. Tellier that I will see him," and he
lighted a fresh cigarette resignedly.

As he watched the smoke turn gray in the sunlight, it suddenly occurred
to him that, in some unaccountable manner, the question of the
succession had receded somewhat into the background; it no longer seemed
to him of such overwhelming consequence; at least, he had not been
thinking of it a moment before, but of something very different--

There appeared at the door a figure which drew a stare of surprise from
Markeld, accustomed as he was to eccentric habiliment. It was arrayed in
a long, mouse-gray frock coat and shiny black trousers; a hand gloved in
lavender kid carried a top hat, while the other caressed, from time to
time, the carefully-waxed mustachios and imperial adorning a countenance
which was a singular mixture of craft and vanity. The little eyes were
half-concealed under drooping, baggy lids, the nose was long and sharp,
the lips very thin and severe, though at this moment parted in a smile
meant to be ingratiating. The figure entered and bowed profoundly,
disclosing Glueck's disgusted face in the doorway.

"Monsieur Tellier?" asked the Prince.

Tellier bowed again, and the Prince noticed the white line of scalp
leading, with geometrical precision, from the brow to the bald spot on
the crown, and then on down the back of the head. It reminded him,
somehow, of the