to note that her sweet face was discontented, impatient, almost sad. She seated herself beside the Grand Duke. The mounted trumpeter blew, the cavalrymen in front wheeled and struck spurs into their horses, the whole procession[37] was instant whirling away—it was gone. Grafton glanced at The Castle doors; they were closed again and the trumpeters and the courtier had disappeared. The dust settled, the magic sleep descended.

[37]

Grafton might have thought himself the victim of an illusion had he not seen, far away across the lake, a cloud of dust, and in front of it the gaudy cavalcade and the grand-ducal carriage, the shine of blue and silver and polished steel rushing along as if fleeing from a fiend. And after a few minutes it came towards The Castle again from the other direction. The horses were dripping, their coats streaked with foam. At the entrance there were the same startling halt, the same mysterious opening of doors, the same stage-like assembling of trumpeters, the[38] same flourishes. The Grand Duke and his niece and the attendants disappeared, the procession fled into the woods; there was silence and ancient repose once more.

[38]

Grafton set out on the return walk, trying to force himself to stop thinking of Her Serene Highness and to resume thinking of her uncle and his Spaniard. He had not gone far when a court-officer issued from a by-path. He paused to get a good look at this romantic figure, and presently recognized beneath the enfoldings of finery his commonplace, voluble acquaintance of the Paris picture-shop, Baron Zeppstein.

“Why, how d’ye do, Baron Zeppstein!” he called out.

The Baron looked at him superciliously, then collapsed into cordiality. “Meester Grafton!” he exclaimed. “It is a pleasure—a[39] joyful surprise. I did not know you at first.”

[39]

“Nor I you,” said Grafton. “I seem to be the only modern thing here—except the old gentleman who took that quiet jog around the lake a few minutes ago.”

“His Royal Highness,” corrected the Baron, pompously. “He takes a drive every afternoon.”

“A good show,” said Grafton. “But I think I’d tire of it. I’d rather look at it than be in it. I should say that he earned his salary.”

The Baron laughed vaguely. “You Americans do not understand our ways,” he said. “You are so practical—so busy. You have no 

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