her behalf! But never anything
happened, and never was the grand duke called upon to offer his
benediction.

It was all very foolish and romantic and impossible, and no one
recognized this more readily than he. No American ever married a
princess of a reigning house, and no American ever will. This law is as
immovable as the law of gravitation. Still, man is master of his dreams,
and he may do as he pleases in the confines of this small circle.
Outside these temporary lapses, Carmichael was a keen, shrewd,
far-sighted young man, close-lipped and observant, never forgetting
faces, never forgetting benefits, loving a fight but never provoking
one. So he and the world were friends. Diplomacy has its synonym in
tact, and he was an able tactician, for all that an Irishman is
generally likened to a bull in a china-shop.

"How the deuce will it end?"--musing half aloud. "I'll forget myself
some day and trip so hard that they'll be asking Washington for my
recall. I'll go over to the gardens and listen to the band. They are
playing dirges to-night, and anything funereal will be a light and happy
tonic to my present state of mind."

He was standing on the curb in front of the hotel, his decision still
unrounded, when he noticed a closed carriage hard by the fountain in
the Platz. The driver dozed on his box.

"Humph! There's a man who is never troubled with counting the fool's
beads. Silver and copper are his gods and goddesses. Ha! a fare!"

A woman in black, thoroughly veiled and cloaked, came round from the
opposite side of the fountain. She spoke to the driver, and he tumbled
off the box, alive and hearty. There seemed to be a short interchange of
words of mutual satisfaction. The lady stepped into the carriage, the
driver woke up his ancient Bucephalus, and went clickety-clack down the
Koenig Strasse toward the town.

To Carmichael it was less than an incident. He twirled his cane and
walked toward the public gardens. Here he strolled about, watching the
people, numerous but orderly, with a bright military patch here and
there. The band struck up again, and he drifted with the crowd toward
the pavilion. The penny-chairs were occupied, so he selected a spot
off-side, near enough for all auditual purposes. One after another he
carelessly scanned the faces of those nearest. He was something of an
amateur physiognomist, but he seldom made the mistakes of the tyro.

Within a dozen feet of him, her arms folded across her