"Then, my dear boy, if you really think that," said Lord Orrel, "how would it be if you were to repair this involuntary injustice which the Fates have wrought upon her? The most beautiful woman in Europe, and perhaps the most nobly born, and you one of the masters of the world! Why not? There is the realisation of a dream even greater than the prince's; and if I have any skill in reading a woman's face or woman's eyes, it is a dream not very difficult for you to realise." Hardress laughed, and shook his head, and said: "No, dad; I'm afraid that's not difficult. It's impossible." The earl looked up sharply, and said: "Oh, then, of course, there is someone else in the case; and that can hardly be anyone but----" "You're quite right, dad; it's Chrysie Vandel. I meant to tell you before, but such a lot of things have happened since I got here, and I didn't really think it was of very much consequence for the present--because, after all, she's only accepted me conditionally--but, lovely and all as the marquise is, I think I would rather rule over the Orrel estates with Chrysie than over the world with her." "Then that, of course, settles it," said the earl, with a certain note of displeasure in his voice. "Miss Vandel is a most charming and fascinating girl, but you will perhaps pardon me, Shafto, if I say that she no more compares with the daughter of the royal line of France than----" "You needn't go on, dad," said Hardress, interrupting him with a laugh; "comparisons are always more or less unpleasant; and then, you see, you're not in love with either of them, and I'm pretty badly in love with one." "Well, well," said his father, "of course, if that's the case, there's an end of it, and there's nothing more to be said. Still, for more reasons than one, I must say that I wish you had met the marquise first. The Plantagenets and the Bourbons would have made a splendid stock." On the same day that this conversation took place in the gardens of the Hôtel Wilhelmshof in Elsenau, a very different one was taking place in the prince's hotel at Vienna between Adelaide de Condé and Victor Fargeau, who, on receipt of the news of the prince's death, had obtained a few days' leave, and travelled post-haste from Petersburg to Vienna. It was after dinner, and Madame de Condé had retired to her own room with a slight attack of nerves. The marquise and Victor Fargeau were sitting on either side of the open fireplace, with a little table, holding coffee and liqueurs, between them. Adelaide had accepted a cigarette from his case, and he had lit one too. For several minutes after her aunt had left the room she puffed daintily at her cigarette, and looked across at him with intricately-mingled feelings. At length Victor broke the silence by saying, with a note of impatience in his tone: