"Because a certain Princess was indiscreet enough to show her curiosity
about you," corrected the fair stranger.

"But look here! I'll apologize to the Princess, and offer to pay for the
plate."

"Then you do want to see the Princess?" said the young girl smiling;
"you are like the others."

"Bother the Princess! I want to see YOU. And I don't see how they can
prevent it if I choose to remain."

"Very easily. You will find that there is something wrong with your
passport, and you will be sent on to Pumpernickel for examination. You
will unwittingly transgress some of the laws of the town and be ordered
to leave it. You will be shadowed by the police until you quarrel with
them--like a free American--and you are conducted to the frontier.
Perhaps you will strike an officer who has insulted you, and then you
are finished on the spot."

The American's crest rose palpably until it cocked his straw hat over
his curls.

"Suppose I am content to risk it--having first laid the whole matter and
its trivial cause before the American Minister, so that he could make it
hot for this whole caboodle of a country if they happened to 'down me.'
By Jove! I shouldn't mind being the martyr of an international episode
if they'd spare me long enough to let me get the first 'copy' over to
the other side." His eyes sparkled.

"You could expose them, but they would then deny the whole story, and
you have no evidence. They would demand to know your informant, and I
should be disgraced, and the Princess, who is already talked about,
made a subject of scandal. But no matter! It is right that an American's
independence shall not be interfered with."

She raised the hem of her handkerchief to her blue eyes and slightly
turned her head aside. Hoffman gently drew the handkerchief away, and in
so doing possessed himself of her other hand.

"Look here, Miss--Miss--Elsbeth. You know I wouldn't give you away,
whatever happened. But couldn't I get hold of that photographer--I saw
him, he wanted me to sit to him--and make him tell me?"

"He wanted you to sit to him," she said hurriedly, "and did you?"

"No," he replied. "He was a little too fresh and previous, though I
thought he fancied some resemblance in me to somebody else."

"Ah!" She said something to herself in German which he did not
understand, and then added aloud:

"You did well; he is a bad man, this photographer. Promise me you shall
not sit for him."

"How can I if I'm fi