“We’ll talk about that to-morrow,” said Mr Byers. “I’m going to call in Palace Gate this afternoon.” He looked very thoughtful as he brushed his hat and sent for a hansom. But, as he drove along, his brow cleared and he smiled triumphantly. If the Prince’s party had not the necessary resources they could do nothing; if they did nothing, would not the drooping Stock lift up her head again? Now nobody was in a position to solve that problem about the necessary resources so surely or so swiftly as Mr Byers. A hundred yards from Prince Julian’s house he saw Lady Craigennoch walking along the pavement, and got out of his cab to join her. She was full of the visit she had just paid, above all of Ellen Rivers. “Because she’s the whole thing, you know,” she said. “The adherents--good gracious, what helpless creatures! I don’t wonder the Republicans upset them if that’s what they’re all like. Oh, they’re gentlemen, of course, and you’re not, Byers”--(Mr Byers bowed slightly and smiled acquiescently)--“but I’d rather have you than a thousand of them. And the Prince, poor dear, is hardly better. Always talking of what he’ll do when he’s there, never thinking how he’s going to get there!” Byers let her run on; she was giving him both instruction and amusement. “And then he’s afraid--oh, not of the bullets or the guillotine or whatever it is--because he’s a gentleman too, you know. (Or perhaps you don’t know! I wonder if you do? Shum doesn’t; perhaps you do.) But he’s afraid of losing her. If he goes, she won’t go with him. I don’t mean as--as she is now, you know. She won’t go anyhow, not as his wife even. Well, of course, if he married her he’d wreck the whole thing. But one would hardly expect her to see that; or even to care, if she did. She’s very odd.” Lady Craigennoch paused a moment. “She’s fond of him too,” she added. “She’s a very queer woman.” “A lady?” asked Mr Byers with a touch of satire. “Oh yes,” said Lady Craigennoch, scornful that he needed to ask. “But so odd. Well, you’ve seen her with him--just like a mother with her pet boy! How hard she’s worked, to be sure! She told me how she’d got him to sign the what’s-its-name. He almost cried, because he’d have to go without her, you know. But she says it’s all right now; he won’t go back now, because he’s given his word. And she’s simply triumphant, though she’s fond of him, and though she won’t go with him.” Again Lady Craigennoch paused. “People won’t call on that woman, you know,” she remarked after her pause. Then she added, “Of course that’s right, except for a reprobate like me. But still----” “She’s an interesting woman,” said Byers in a perfunctory sympathy with his companion’s enthusiasm. Lady Craigennoch cooled down, and fixed a cold and penetrating glance on him. “Yes, and you’re an interesting man,” she said. “What are you doing, Mr Byers?” “Vindicating Right Divine,” he answered.