He glanced through the news columns this bright October morning. Suddenly a headline and a name caught his eye. Istar! The elopement of the celebrated opera singer Istar with a prince of the blood royal! A half column cable despatch, evidently elaborated in the newspaper office. It described in exaggerated terms the elopement of Easter with a Bavarian princeling from Munich. She had been singing there as "guest" and the musical prince had lost his head, though married to a dowdy princess, and the father of an increasing family. The pair had run away in the night but all the machinery of policedom had been set whirring. En route for Lake Como they were tracked to Vienna and there arrested. A diplomatic arrest, be it understood. The "avenging wife" figured in the dénouement; she was said to have wielded a whip, but Istar grabbed it from her flaccid grasp and gave the unhappy woman a genuine horse-whipping. But doubtless this incident was manufactured out of the whole cloth. The wretched princeling was nipped and in company with a delegation of solemn functionaries, was sent back to Munich, where he was solemnly spanked and put to bed--metaphorically. The affair made a terrific scandal. Istar was warned by the secret police that she would be expelled if she ever crossed the Bavarian border. What amused Ulick was her reported attitude when she was intercepted. She swaggered to the prince and shaking his chilly, frightened hand, she insolently hummed a familiar tune: "Du bist verrückt mein Kind. Du muss nach Berlin...." The pompous entourage couldn't stand that and there were discreet smiles and much wagging of official skulls. Decidedly, Easter came out with flying colours.... Ulick laid down the paper. Easter was surely on the road to victory. Duels, elopements, scandals, royal favours, Good Heavens! how that girl is going straight to her goal. She is an arriviste, but all women are arrivistes. Never mind so you win! When he thought of some women and compared his own slow mode of reacting to circumstances he realised that his incompetence was encyclopaedic. He admired Easter more than ever, admired her at a distance of three thousand miles. All said and done she was more to his taste than Mona. He was worldly. He was artistic. He liked the éclat of operatic triumphs. Istar had arrived. Lilli Lehmann, retired; Ternina retired--who was there, except Olive Fremstad to take their place! Fremstad would prove a serious rival to Easter. No doubt about that. But she had visited New York before Easter, and that would give the girl a free field.