Serene Highness is most intractable—one of the new school of wild young princesses who are cutting loose from everything in these degenerate days.”

“She certainly doesn’t look tame.”

[43]“I had the honor of escorting her to Paris when I went for His Royal Highness’s picture,” Zeppstein continued. “It was a painful experience. And instead of sustaining me, His Royal Highness—but it was most humiliating.”

[43]

“Excellent,” said Grafton. “I can be of service to you. I own a Rembrandt which I wish to let the Grand Duke have at a bargain. I’m certain he’ll be most anxious to get it once he hears of it. Now, if you should be of assistance to him in getting it, he would be grateful, wouldn’t he?”

Zeppstein became thoughtful. “Not grateful,” he said. “It isn’t in His Royal Highness to be grateful. But it might make him think me useful. What do you propose?”

“I don’t know; I can’t tell yet. Keep[44] quiet until I’ve looked over the ground and made my plans.”

[44]

“I am at your service,” said Zeppstein. “You would weep to hear how the Grand Chamberlain and his faction have humiliated me. They make me the butt of their jokes at dinner to amuse His Royal Highness. They—”

“You shall be revenged,” said Grafton, shaking hands with him and hurrying away.

From the moment he recognized old Zeppstein until he left him he had been fighting to restrain himself from leading the talk to Erica. He now caught himself regretting it. He stopped short. “Ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “What an idiot I am to let such ideas into my head. It must be in the air here. I’m getting as romantic as—as—as she looks.” And he walked on, her face and her voice haunting him.

[45]

III A Skirmish

GRAFTON learned that the next was one of the three weekly public days at the Grand Duke’s galleries. About eleven the next morning he went to look at his Spaniard and develop his plans for its capture. As he neared The Castle he saw a gardener at work upon his knees, trimming a bush of big pink and white flowers.

“Where is the entrance to the galleries?” he asked, when he was within a yard of the gardener.

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