"Well, as I was about to say, after her return from Dalmatia, one of the first acts of the princess was to appoint a new uniform for her body-guard. Accordingly sketches of the various costumes worn in the different European armies were laid before her. You, my dear Paul, ought to feel honored by her selection." "Why so?" "Because the uniform she chose is one so like your own that for my part I fail to detect the difference. As you walk through the streets of Slavowitz you will certainly be taken for one of her _corps du garde_, known as the Blue Legion." A strange suspicion entered Paul's mind. "How old is the Princess Natalie?" "She celebrated her nineteenth birthday last week." "Barbara, if she were living, would be twenty-one by this time," murmured Paul to himself; and then aloud he added: "And you say that the princess is very beautiful?" "Be thyself the judge," smiled Trevisa. "Within a quarter of an hour from now she will pass along this boulevard on her way to the Mazeppa Gardens. From the balcony here you will have a good view of her." "Haven't you her portrait upon you?" "At present I have with me no other likeness than this." And here Trevisa drew forth a gold-piece, bright as if fresh from the mint. "The new coinage, issued this week. Reverse--the double-headed eagle, the ancient arms of Poland. Obverse--the profile of the princess with the legend '_Natalia, Princeps Czern. Amat. Patr._' 'Natalie, Princess of Czernova, Lover of her Country.' Did the goddess Athene carry a more dainty head than this?" Paul took the coin, glanced at the obverse, and then sat in a state wavering between belief and unbelief. Was this golden disc really stamped with the head of Barbara? So it seemed to Paul. At any rate, if her profile had been engraved on metal with due regard to fidelity, it would have differed little or nothing from that on the coin. Then a new idea seized him, and one more consonant with probability. Was this the profile of the maiden whose portrait he had seen in the cardinal's secret study at Castel Nuovo--the maiden with the laughing eyes, the sceptre and the diadem? "A graceful head, a very graceful head," he remarked, returning the coin. "I should like to hear more of the fair lady." "As many questions as you please." "First, where did the Princess Natalie pass her childhood and youth?" "Here in the city of Slavowitz and its vicinity. Of course she has had her travels like the rest of us, and has visited different European countries, but, speaking generally, she was reared and educated in the Vistula Palace, whose towers you can see rising behind yon cathedral spire." Clearly not Barbara, for Barbara had spent her earlier years at Warsaw, her later in the Illyrian Convent of the Holy Sacrament. "And what of her visit to Dalmatia?"