“Oh, one can see that you’ve enjoyed a liberal education,” he apprised her. “But where were you taught to jump to conclusions? You do it with a grace, an assurance. I too have heard that two and two make four; but first you must catch your two and two. Really, as if there couldn’t be more than one Chinese costume knocking about Vienna, during carnival week! Dear, good, sweet lady, it’s of all disguises the disguise they’re driving hardest, this particular season. And then to build up an elaborate theory of identities upon the mere chance resemblance of a pair of photographs! Photographs indeed! Photographs don’t give the complexion. Say that your Invisible Prince is dark, what’s to prevent your literary man from being fair or sandy? Or vice versa? And then, how is a little German Polish princeling to write poems and things in English? No, no, no; your reasoning hasn’t a leg to stand on.” “Oh, I don’t mind its not having legs,” she laughed, “so long as it convinces me. As for writing poems and things in English, you yourself said that everybody is more or less English, in these days. German princes are especially so. They all learn English, as a second mother-tongue. You see, like Circassian beauties, they are mostly bred up for the marriage market; and nothing is a greater help towards a good sound remunerative English marriage, than a knowledge of the language. However, don’t be frightened. I must take it for granted that Victor Field would prefer not to let the world know who he is. I happen to have discovered his secret. He may trust to my discretion.” “You still persist in imagining that I’m Victor Field?” he murmured sadly. “I should have to be extremely simple-minded,” she announced, “to imagine anything else. You wouldn’t be a male human being if you had sat here for half an hour patiently talking about another man.” “Your argument,” said he, “with a meretricious air of subtlety, is facile and superficial. I thank you for teaching me that word. I’d sit here till doomsday talking about my worst enemy, for the pleasure of talking with you.” “Perhaps we have been talking of your worst enemy. Whom do the moralists pretend a man’s worst enemy is wont to be?” she asked. “I wish you would tell me the name of the person the moralists would consider your worst enemy,” he replied. “I’ll tell you directly, as I said before, if you’ll own up,” she offered. “Your price is prohibitive. I’ve nothing to own up to.” “Well then—good night,” she said. Lightly, swiftly, she fled from the conservatory, and was soon irrecoverable in the crowd.