d.

"Well, yes," returned Hoffman, disengaging it. "I suppose we are
respectful, or mean to be. But whom am I to inquire for? To write to?"

"You are neither to write nor inquire."

"What?" She had moved in her seat so as to half-face him with eyes in
which curiosity, mischief, and a certain seriousness alternated, but for
the first time seemed conscious of his hand, and accented her words with
a slight pressure.

"You are to return to your hotel presently, and say to your landlord:
'Pack up my luggage. I have finished with this old town and my
ancestors, and the Grand Duke, whom I do not care to see, and I shall
leave Alstadt tomorrow!'"

"Thank you! I don't catch on."

"Of what necessity should you? I have said it. That should be enough for
a chivalrous American like you." She again significantly looked down at
her hand.

"If you mean that you know the extent of the favor you ask of me, I can
say no more," he said seriously; "but give me some reason for it."

"Ah so!" she said, with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "Then I must
tell you. You say you do not know the Grand Duke and Duchess. Well! THEY
KNOW YOU. The day before yesterday you were wandering in the park, as
you admit. You say, also, you got through the hedge and interrupted
some ceremony. That ceremony was not a Court function, Mr. Hoffman, but
something equally sacred--the photographing of the Ducal family
before the Schloss. You say that you instantly withdrew. But after the
photograph was taken the plate revealed a stranger standing actually
by the side of the Princess Alexandrine, and even taking the PAS of the
Grand Duke himself. That stranger was you!"

"And the picture was spoiled," said the American, with a quiet laugh.

"I should not say that," returned the lady, with a demure glance at her
companion's handsome face, "and I do not believe that the Princess--who
first saw the photograph--thought so either. But she is very young
and willful, and has the reputation of being very indiscreet, and
unfortunately she begged the photographer not to destroy the plate, but
to give it to her, and to say nothing about it, except that the plate
was defective, and to take another. Still it would have ended there if
her curiosity had not led her to confide a description of the stranger
to the Police Inspector, with the result you know."

"Then I am expected to leave town because I accidentally stumbled into a
family group that was being photographed?"