for next Thursday, and will go right on to
Constantinople."

"But I thought you said you had to buy a lot of clothes there?" Carlton
expostulated.

Mrs. Downs said that they would do that on their way home.

Nolan met Carlton at the station, and told him that he had followed the
Hohenwalds to the Hotel Meurice. "There is the Duke, sir, and the
three Princesses," Nolan said, "and there are two German gentlemen
acting as equerries, and an English captain, a sort of A.D.C. to the
Duke, and two elderly ladies, and eight servants. They travel very
simple, sir, and their people are in undress livery. Brown and red,
sir."

Carlton pretended not to listen to this. He had begun to doubt but
that Nolan's zeal would lead him into some indiscretion, and would end
disastrously to himself. He spent the evening alone in front of the
Cafe de la Paix, pleasantly occupied in watching the life and movement
of that great meeting of the highways. It did not seem possible that
he had ever been away. It was as though he had picked up a book and
opened it at the page and place at which he had left off reading it a
moment before. There was the same type, the same plot, and the same
characters, who were doing the same characteristic things. Even the
waiter who tipped out his coffee knew him; and he knew, or felt as
though he knew, half of those who passed, or who shared with him the
half of the sidewalk. The women at the next table considered the slim,
good-looking young American with friendly curiosity, and the men with
them discussed him in French, until a well-known Parisian recognized
Carlton in passing, and hailed him joyously in the same language, at
which the women laughed and the men looked sheepishly conscious.

On the following morning Carlton took up his post in the open court of
the Meurice, with his coffee and the Figaro to excuse his loitering
there. He had not been occupied with these over-long before Nolan
approached him, in some excitement, with the information that their
Royal Highnesses--as he delighted to call them--were at that moment
"coming down the lift."

Carlton could hear their voices, and wished to step around the corner
and see them; it was for this chance he had been waiting; but he could
not afford to act in so undignified a manner before Nolan, so he merely
crossed his legs nervously, and told the servant to go back to the
rooms.

"Confound him!" he said; "I wish he would let me conduct my own