interested in this young enthusiast, and not a little puzzled by him also. Louis was still intending to proceed to Thracia in a few days, in order to offer his services to M. Drakovics, but his utterances on the subject were not marked by the fiery fanaticism which might have been expected from him on the authority of his past record. “An enthusiast?” said Cyril to himself. “He’s no more an enthusiast than I am, and that’s putting it pretty strong. A plotter he may be. If he’s a patriot, he’s one of his father’s stamp, the dynamite and dagger school. And yet only an enthusiast would have taken such a step as to throw up his commission in the Scythian army for the sake of joining the Thracians. But what is he doing here? If he means to go to Thracia, why not hurry on there at once? It’s not like an enthusiast to stick for days doing nothing at Janoszwar. Perhaps he hopes to enlist Caerleon and me as volunteers. Perhaps he doesn’t like Caerleon’s dangling after his sister. Can that be it?” He thought of the contemptuous sniff with which Louis had more than once manifested his opinion of the way in which Caerleon gravitated inevitably to Nadia’s side when they took their walks, but otherwise there was nothing to show that he disapproved of the intimacy. He might not welcome it, but he was not actively hostile; by no word nor action would he influence the result in either direction. “Is he a philosopher or a blackmailer?” soliloquised Cyril. “Or does he only think Caerleon is a fool? I know men often are amused when any one falls in love with their sisters, and I can’t say that I wonder at it myself in this case. What Caerleon can find to like in that sulky girl I can’t imagine, but he really seems to be hooked this time.”