nd Princess Sanzanow gave me such a look of touching
gratitude that I was sure I had been lucky enough to do the right thing.
"Oh, I am so glad!" she breathed. "Then, if you are great friends, you
will want to go in to dinner together, and I must let you do so."

She had the air of having just been saved from drowning; and I was the
straw which had thrust itself out in the nick of time for her to catch.
Having accomplished my mission as a straw, I gave my attention wholly to
Eagle, but though I tried not to notice, I was dimly conscious, all the
same, of what was going on around me. I saw Major Skobeleff, the young
Russian officer whose escape Eagle had aided--Prince Sanzanow's
nephew--talking to Milly; and noticed that Stefan Stefanovitch had been
given to Di as a substitute for Captain March. Somehow or other the
princess juggled her guests about so that three minutes after the crash,
when dinner was announced, all could "set to partners" without
confusion. There was a French duchess--a refugee from Paris--present,
whom the prince had to take in, and the princess had the duke. That
arrangement couldn't be upset; and the only quite ridiculous effect of
the whirlwind was to give young Prince Paul to a widow old enough to be
his grandmother.

I had rushed into talk with Eagle before we stopped shaking hands; but
he had not been able to answer the call of conventionality so soon; and
it was not till after we were seated at table that he could control
himself to speak. On his other side was Prince Paul's elderly dinner
companion. On my other side was the new military attache who had taken
the count's place in the Embassy, a man past the soldiering age; and as
he had Madame Pavlova to talk to, for him I did not exist. Eagle and I
could speak to each other as if we were alone together in a forest
haunted with far-off voices.

"What a fool I was to come here!" he said. "I ought to have known."

"Don't be sorry," I whispered. "Think how glad I am to see you. And
there's no reason--no reason in the world--why you should wish to keep
out of _their_ way. You have nothing to be ashamed of--but very proud."

"I _am_ glad to see you again," he answered. "Don't imagine I'm not! But
I meant to see you, anyhow. I've known for weeks where you were. I made
that kind old parson who piloted you home promise to wire to an address
I gave, when you got safely back to England. And afterward he wrote to
tell me what fine work you were doing