"And a very exciting, melodramatic little story, too. For my part, I suspect your Prince met a boojum. I love to listen to stories. Won't you tell me another? Do, please," he pressed her.

   "No, he didn't meet a boojum," she returned. "He went to England, and set up for an author. The Invisible Prince and Victor Field are one and the same person."

   "Oh, I say! Not really!" he exclaimed.

   "Yes, really."

   "What makes you think so?" he wondered.

   "I'm sure of it," said she. "To begin with, I must confide to you that Victor Field is a man I've never met."

   "Never met—?" he gasped. "But, by the blithe way in which you were laying his sins at my door, a little while ago, I supposed you were sworn confederates."

   "What's the good of masked balls, if you can't talk to people you've never met?" she submitted. "I've never met him, but I'm one of his admirers. I like his little poems. And I'm the happy possessor of a portrait of him. It's a print after a photograph. I cut it from an illustrated paper."

   "I really almost wish I

    was

   Victor Field," he sighed. "I should feel such a glow of gratified vanity."

   "And the Countess Wohenhoffen," she added, "has at least twenty portraits of the Invisible Prince—photographs, miniatures, life-size paintings, taken from the time he was born, almost, to the time of his disappearance. Victor Field and Louis Leczinski have countenances as like each other as two halfpence."

   "An accidental resemblance, doubtless."

   "No, it isn't an accidental resemblance," she affirmed.

   "Oh, then you think it's intentional?" he quizzed.

   "Don't be absurd. I might have thought it accidental, except for one or two odd little circumstances.

    Primo

   , Victor Field is a guest at the Wohenhoffens' ball."

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