The Duke led the way into a Japanese smoking lounge which opened off the stairs. A large bow-window revealed the panorama of the night-enchanted river, the reflections of the bridge lamps veining the tide with molten gold. Prince Herbert walked to the window and gazed out speechless for several minutes, during which his host strewed a lacquered table with cigars of a rare brand, named after the Prince himself. “The grandest view in Europe, I always think,” the Prince observed, as he turned reluctantly from the window. “And yet there is something dreadful in it. It is so utterly removed from Nature. It makes one think of the underground life which we are told the race will one day have to take to.” “We have taken to it already, it seems to me,” Trent answered. “We travel underground, our light and water come to us underground, our food is cooked underground, and I am told there are underground stables in some parts of London.” Prince Herbert closed his lips as he walked across to choose a cigar. It was not the first time that he had found James Stuart a heavy person to talk to. He could not help comparing this commonplace mind, with its prim grasp of daily life and its impotence to rise to any higher plane, with the brilliant and sensitive imagination of Alistair, like a soaring bubble, one moment glowing with the reflected radiance of a thousand stars, the next moment smashed against the coarse paling of the roadway. Yet it was this man who enjoyed honour and favour, while the other was become an outcast. It was to this man that he himself was about to sue for some toleration of the other. He had just struck a light when the door opened to admit Alistair’s mother. With the quick instinct of sympathy she had divined the object of the royal visit, and she pressed a warm kiss on the Prince’s forehead as he came forward to greet her. “My dear aunt,” he exclaimed, using the title which he had given her in his boyish days, “I hope you haven’t come downstairs on my account. I ought to have gone up to you.” “I would much rather sit here, and see you smoke,” she said, with an affectionate smile. “That is, if an old woman is not in the way of two young men.” Prince Herbert hastened to draw forward a chair, but the Duchess refused to sit down till the visitor had lit his cigar. As soon as some servants who had brought in a tray of spirits had left the room, the Prince opened his appeal. “I am very sorry about Alistair,” he said. A frown passed quickly over the Duke’s face at this allusion to the family trouble, but his mother looked up gratefully. “I was sure you would be,” she responded. “Poor foolish boy! If only I could find a way to save him!” “Couldn’t this have been prevented?” inquired Prince Herbert, glancing at the elder brother. James shook his head decisively.