the next room, divided from him by a single wall, sat Princess
Virginia of Baumenburg-Drippe.

"When we meet again at Kronburg, he mustn't dream that I knew all the
time," she was saying to herself. "That would spoil everything--just
at first. Yet oh, some day how I should love to confess all--all! Only
I couldn't possibly confess except to a man who would excuse, or
perhaps even approve, because he had learned to love me--well. And
what shall I do, how shall I bear my life now I've seen him, if that
day should never come?"

CHAPTER VI

NOT IN THE PROGRAM

Letters of introduction for Lady Mowbray and her daughter to
influential and interesting persons attached to the Rhaetian Court,
were necessarily a part of the wonderful plan connected in the English
garden, though they were among the details thought out afterwards.

The widow of the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baumenburg-Drippe was
reported in the journals of various countries, to be traveling with
the Princess Virginia and a small suite, through Canada and the United
States; and fortunately for the success of the innocent plot, the
Grand Duchess had spent so many years of seclusion in England, and
had, even in her youth, met so few Rhaetians, that there was little
fear of detection. Her objections to Virginia's scheme for winning a
lover instead of thanking Heaven quietly for a mere husband, were
based on other grounds, but Virginia had overcome them, and
eventually the Grand Duchess had proved not only docile, but
positively fertile in expedient.

The choosing of the borrowed flag under which to sail had at first
been a difficulty. It was pointed out by a friend taken into their
confidence (a lady whose husband had been ambassador to Rhaetia), that
a real name, and a name of some dignity, must be adopted, if proper
introductions were to be given. And it was the Grand Duchess who
suggested the name of Mowbray, on the plea that she had, in a way, the
right to annex it.

The mother of the late Duke of Northmoreland had been a Miss Mowbray,
and there were still several eminently respectable, inconspicuous
Mowbray cousins. Among these cousins was a certain Lady Mowbray, widow
of a baron of that ilk, and possessing a daughter some years older and
innumerable degrees plainer than the Princess Virginia.

To this Lady Mowbray the Grand Duchess had gone out of her way to be
kind in Germany, long years ago, when she was a very grand personage
indeed, and Lady