Bob had been in retirement several weeks, having himself rejuvenated by a beauty doctor. You are astonished, gentle reader, perhaps incredulous, that a man of his position--high both socially and financially--should stoop to such triviality--not a woman but a man. And the serious, masculine sort of man he was, I assure you. But you, being a confirmed accepter of the trash written and talked about human nature, do not appreciate what a power physical vanity is in the world. Of course, if you are a man, you know about your own carefully hid physical vanity. But you think it in yourself a virtue, quite natural, not a vanity at all. Bob Armitage was not vain enough to fail to see the beginning of the ravages of time and dissipation. Another man would have looked in the glass and would have seen a reflection ever handsomer as the years went by, would have discovered in the creases and crow’s-feet and lengthening wattles a superb beauty of manly strength of character showing at last in the face. Bob was not that sort of fool. He wished to fascinate the ladies; so, he strove to retain the fair insignia of youth as long as he possibly could. He knew as well as the next man that his wealth had value with the women far beyond any degree of beauty or charm. But like most men he wished to feel that he was at least not a “winner” in spite of his personal self; and his young good looks even helped toward the pleasantest of delusions--that he was loved for himself chiefly. The beauty doctor did well by him, I must say. He looked ten years younger, would have passed in artificial light for a youth of thirty or thereabouts. He reappeared in his haunts, freshened up mentally, too; for physical content reacts powerfully upon the mind, and while it is true that feeling young helps one to look young, it is truer that looking young compels one to feel young. With him came a Prince Frascatoni, head of one of the great families of Italy, one of the few that have retained German titles and estates from the days of the Holy Roman Empire. Frascatoni was sufficiently rich for all ordinary purposes, and could therefore pose as a traveler for pleasure with no matrimonial designs. He was, in fact, poor for a _grand seigneur_ and was on the same business in America that has attracted here every other visiting foreigner of rank--except those who come for political purposes, and those who come to shoot in the West. And those classes give our fashionable society as wide a berth as they would its middle-class prototype in their home countries.