She was quite sincere in saying she liked it. She did. Often she would look up from her book and let her eyes fall with pleasure on the small green and blue and white canvas, and wonder in what farming district Mr. Haines had been brought up--and in what capacity. The New York climate affected the princess' ability to sleep. She read often late into the night. One night--or rather morning--for it must have been three o'clock--she was interrupted by a visit from her son. He often dropped in on his way to bed to sketch for her the strange but in his opinion agreeable habits of the American girl. But this evening he did not burst out into his usual narrative. He entered silently, and stood for some seconds silent. Then he said "Our host has returned." "Oh," said the princess with pleasure, for, after all, this was the purpose of the long excursion. "How unexpected!" Her son gave a short laugh. "I believe you," he said. "Unexpected is just the word. It sometimes seems as if, in spite of all that has been written on the subject, husbands would never learn the tactlessness of the unexpected return." "Raimundo, what do you mean?" asked his mother with a sinking heart. The boy hesitated. "The lovely Charlotte," he said, "is all that you told me she was--cool and virtuous--so much so that it never occurs to her that others may be different. Tonight I brought her home from a dull party. We got talking; we sat down in the drawing-room. The back of a lovely white neck bent over a table was so near my lips--and the husband enters." "Was there a scene?" "Oh, no. It was worse. We chatted _à trois_ for a time." The princess drew a long breath. "Perhaps he did not see; but really, Raimundo--" "Oh, he saw," said the prince. "He maneuvered the suspicious Charlotte off to bed, and then he suggested without a trace of anger or criticism that I should leave the house in the morning; and really, my dear mother, I'm afraid I shall have to do it. I'm so sorry, I know you'll feel annoyed with me, but it is hard to remember that no woman means anything here. I just manage to remember it with the girls; but the married women--well, one can't always be so sure; not so sure, at least as one is with Charlotte. There was no excuse for me--none." "You're an awkward, ungrateful boy," said his mother, with an absence of temper that made her pronouncement more severe. "I think I shall go downstairs now myself and have a talk with Mr. Haines." "You'll do the talking," answered her son. "He isn't exactly a chatty man." But the princess was not discouraged. She could not see that she could do any harm to Raimundo's prospects, since evidently all was now lost, and she felt she owed it to Charlotte to repair, if she could, any damage the boy's folly had occasioned.