“We don’t intrude, I hope,” repeated the prince, closing the door behind him, and sitting down near the littered centre table. “Keep on hoping!” vouchsafed Conover gruffly. “What am I to do for you?” He could never grow accustomed to this foreign son-in-law whom he had known but two days. Obedient, for once, to his wife, and to his daughter’s written instructions, he had yielded to the marriage, had consented to its performance at the American Embassy at Paris rather than at the white marble Pompton Avenue “Mausoleum,” and had readily allowed himself to be convinced that the union meant a social stride for the entire family such as could never otherwise have been attained. His wife and daughter had returned from Europe just before the reception (whose details had, by his own command, been left wholly to Caleb), bringing with them the happy bridegroom. Caleb had never before seen a prince. In his youth, fairy tales had not been his portion; so he had not even the average child’s conception of a mediæval Being in gold-spangled doublet and hose, to guide him. Hence his ideas had been more than shadowy. What he had seen was a very tall, very slender, very handsome personage, whose costumes and manner a keener judge of fashion would have decided were on a par with the princely command of English: perfect, but a trifle too carefully accentuated to appeal to Yankee tastes. Beyond the most casual intercourse and table talk there had been hitherto no scope for closer acquaintanceship between the two men. The reception had taken up everyone’s time and thoughts. Caleb had, however, studied the prince from afar, and had sought to apply to him some of the numberless classifications in which he was so unerringly wont to place his fellow-men. But none of the ready-made moulds seemed to fit the newcomer. “What can I do for you?” repeated Conover, looking at his watch. “In a few minutes I’m expecting some——” “We shall not detain you long. We have come to speak to you on a—a rather delicate theme.” “Delicate?” muttered Caleb, glancing up from the politely embarrassed prince to his daughter. “Well, speak it out, then. The best treatment for delicate things is a little healthy exposure. What is it?” “I ventured to interrupt your labors,” said d’Antri, his face reflecting a gentle look of pain at his host’s brusqueness, “to speak to you in reference to your daughter’s _dot_.” “Her which?” queried Caleb, looking at the bride as though in search of symptoms of some violent, unsuspected malady. “Amadeo means my dowry,” explained Blanche, with some impatience. “It is the custom, you know, on the Continent.” “Not on any part of the Continent _I_ ever struck. And I’ve been pretty much all over it from ’Frisco to Quebec. It’s a new one on me.”