“Exactly--the young lady. You are a very clever man, M. Drakovics, but you have not had the advantage of spending a year in the British Embassy at Pavelsburg, and making an exhaustive study of Scythian society ladies. I know well enough the Cercle Evangélique in which Miss O’Malachy was brought up--not that it is in favour in high quarters, quite the contrary; but I was interested in it out of curiosity. Its members may be called fanatics--they certainly are not worldly-wise--and I am pretty sure that Princess Soudaroff has made her god-daughter as great an enthusiast as she is herself. Now you will see why I am ready to lay aside in her case the usual rule of considering every one a knave until he or she is proved otherwise, and why I expect her to do our business for us.” “But how?” “I will lay the case before her, and point out that Caerleon will ruin his cause and jeopardise his crown if he marries her. Then she will refuse him for his own sake.” “Impossible, milord! Refuse a crown?” “For his sake, I tell you. That’s what the girl is like. Well, will you leave it to me? If I fail, after fair trial, I give you full leave to break off the match in your own way.” “I agree, milord, though I cannot believe you will succeed. No woman on earth would decline a crown, to be shared with the man whom, according to you, she loves passionately. But you shall try. By all means, milord, we work together, if you please.” “I thought so,” laughed Cyril to himself, as M. Drakovics went out. A little later, he saw from the balcony the O’Malachys’ travelling-carriage coming round to the door, and watched while the family took their places in it. Madame O’Malachy, gracious and graceful as ever, was nodding pleasantly to the landlady as the luggage was put up, and her husband was cracking a joke with the travelled waiter, through whom all communications with the authorities of the inn were obliged to be conducted. Louis, surly and unapproachable as usual, took his seat in the carriage without a word, and Nadia was equally silent as she sat upright by her mother’s side, her face covered with a thick veil, which aroused Cyril’s suspicions instantly. “She has been crying,” he said. “What a pity her complexion isn’t like her mother’s, for a little powder and paint would put it all right in that case. What Caerleon can see in her I cannot imagine.”