There appeared at the door a figure which drew a stare of surprise from Markeld, accustomed as he was to eccentric habiliment. It was arrayed in a long, mouse-gray frock coat and shiny black trousers; a hand gloved in lavender kid carried a top hat, while the other caressed, from time to time, the carefully-waxed mustachios and imperial adorning a countenance which was a singular mixture of craft and vanity. The little eyes were half-concealed under drooping, baggy lids, the nose was long and sharp, the lips very thin and severe, though at this moment parted in a smile meant to be ingratiating. The figure entered and bowed profoundly, disclosing Glück's disgusted face in the doorway. "Monsieur Tellier?" asked the Prince. Tellier bowed again, and the Prince noticed the white line of scalp leading, with geometrical precision, from the brow to the bald spot on the crown, and then on down the back of the head. It reminded him, somehow, of the Lake of Constance, with the Rhine flowing through it. "You have something to communicate?" he continued, repressing a smile. "Something of the first importance, Your Highness," said the Frenchman; "otherwise I should not have taken the liberty of disturbing Your Highness." "Very well," and the Prince motioned him to a chair. "Sit down. I shall be glad to hear you." "It is something," said the Frenchman, with a glance at the open door, "which should be communicated, if Your Highness please, in confidence." "Glück, shut the door," commanded the Prince. "Now, my dear sir, proceed." "Your Highness is, of course, aware," began the detective, sitting down with a back very straight, and drooping his lids until his eyes were almost closed, "that France is deeply interested in this question of the succession, and that its sympathies are wholly with Prince Ferdinand, the cousin of Your Highness, and whom, I understand, Your Highness represents." Markeld nodded. "We should naturally expect France's sympathy," he said. "France," proclaimed Tellier, raising his chin proudly, "is always on the side of justice and decency." "More especially," continued the Prince, drily, "when the Emperor of Germany happens to be on the other side. Come now, confess--if the Emperor were for us, you would be against us--is it not so?" Tellier permitted the faintest shadow of a smile to flicker across his lips. "Your Highness speaks with a bluntness disconcerting," he said, deprecatingly. "I wished merely to clear the air," said the Prince, "and to prick at the outset the bubble with which you were trying to dazzle me. Let me assure you that we thoroughly understand France's attitude in this matter. She is on our side simply because she sees an opportunity of humiliating, through us, an old enemy."