“He knows that in this poverty-stricken country nothing will help him forward like money--for he already has birth and brains. Well, he has learned from aunt about the arrangement you have been so good as to make for me--about your going to give me a part of your fortune, and your going to leave its management, even when it’s Alice’s, in my hands. He wants entire control of it all as soon as he can get it; the use of the lump sum will forward his plans much better than the use of the income alone. So he looks upon me as an obstacle between him and his ambition. That’s the other reason for his not loving me.” “Anything else?” “That’s enough, isn’t it?” “Well, then--why don’t you like him? Not just because he’s marrying Alice?” “I wouldn’t stop liking Jack Hammond if Alice were to marry Jack.” “What is the reason then?” Drexel hesitated. “I can’t explain. Nothing definite. He’s rather cold, and formal, and distant. But that isn’t it. It’s just a sort of uneasy feeling that I have when with him. I guess that’s really all. In fact-- But there he comes now.” CHAPTER VIII THE PRINCESS OF HEARTS But first came Alice. Snow was upon her light fluffy hair and her long fur coat, and her cheeks were pink with the cold and her eyes bright with the excitement of this first meeting between father and fiancé. Next came her mother, her matronly figure amplified by her thick Russian coat, exultant satisfaction on her proud face--the sense of having triumphantly done the thing she had started out to do. And behind them came the prince, whom the two had met at the entrance of the hotel. The great financier took the slender hand of his ancient-blooded son-in-law. He looked him keenly over, all the while the words of getting acquainted were being exchanged--looked him over with growing satisfaction. The prince was a man, despite his forty years, who well might capture a young girl’s fancy. He was straight, with the easy grace of a courtier, and wore a dark green uniform of a colonel of the Czar’s Guards, with a heavy festoon of gold braid across his breast and with high patent-leather boots. He was the acme of ancient lineage and high breeding; his face was pale, his lips and nostrils were thin, his black moustache had just the proper upward lift, his slight baldness only made more suggestive of power a forehead naturally large, and the great scar on his left cheek (a Heidelberg scar) that might have disfigured a coarser man only added to his distinguished air. Diplomat, soldier, art connoisseur, student, it was said of him that the Czar’s domain held no more polished gentleman. No wonder Alice admired and her father was satisfied; this was no mere hang-lipped, chinless, stuttering, penniless title.