“Oh, the Princess has failed us twice, we need not consider her. One throws away an untrustworthy tool, you know. As for the girl, we will find her another husband. Your niece would suit Michael much better--keep him well in hand and look the part, too. I have been studying her closely since I came here. She will never have the regular beauty of her mother; but her colouring is far more charming, and--Englishwoman though she is--she has not the distressing woodenness of manner which spoiled the lovely Nadia Mikhailovna in her younger days. If that girl had been brought up by a woman of the world, instead of a saintly fanatic like my sister Pauline Vassilievna, she would have taken Europe by storm. Your niece can never rival her. But then, as I say, she has dignity and good-humour and _bonhomie_ such as her mother did not possess. Why, I would advise my august master to obtain her hand for the Crown Prince, but that I should despair of making her a convert to Orthodoxy.” Cyril laughed gently. “If my niece wishes to be Queen of Thracia, Prince, she will attain her object without my help. If she doesn’t, nothing I could do would have any effect upon her.” “You would return to Thracia as Premier, of course.” “Thanks, but that I have already refused to do.” “Then I fear we can settle nothing,” said Prince Soudaroff, rising from the table, “since I am forbidden to accept any agreement that excludes this all-important stipulation. I am returning to Pavelsburg at once, and I will take his Imperial Majesty’s pleasure on the subject. Shall we join the ladies? I must make my adieux at once, or I shall not reach Charlottenbad in time for the train.” But although Prince Soudaroff’s coachman was distinctly ordered, in the hearing of Cyril and Usk, to take the Charlottenbad road, he did not do so, nor did the occupant of the carriage appear to feel any alarm when he found himself being driven exactly in the opposite direction. The road which the coachman appeared to prefer led into the hills, and after a drive of about twenty minutes the carriage stopped at a small door in a park-wall, and Prince Soudaroff alighted. The door opened at his knock, and he walked briskly along the path that led from it, guided by a ray of light from a window at some distance in front. Below this window was a door, which was also opened promptly by an invisible watcher, and admitted the visitor to a passage in which was a back staircase. The man-servant who had been stationed at the door conducted him in perfect silence up the stairs, and through a small ante-room into a luxurious boudoir, in which was sitting a lady in trailing garments of black and a cap with a long black veil falling from it to the ground. She dismissed the servant with a gesture. “Well, what is your news?” she asked imperiously of Prince Soudaroff. “Bad, madame. The Mortimer is incorruptible.” “Then the negotiations are broken off?”