“No.  But—­”

“Do I understand you wish to give me notice?” she interrupted sharply.

“Not at all.”  In an alarmed tone.  “I couldn’t—­I mean I wouldn’t do that.  Only I thought you might have felt dissatisfied—­people usually do with me,” he added impressively.  “So if you would like to give me—­”

She made a gesture.  “That will do.  I am very busy this morning.  The begging list, though smaller than usual—­only three hundred and seventy-six letters—­has to be attended to.”

Thus the matter of Mr. Heatherbloom’s staying or going continued, much to that person’s discomfiture, in statu quo.  It is true he found, later, a compromising course; a way out of the difficulty—­as he thought, little knowing the extraordinary new web he was weaving!—­but before that time came, several things happened.  In the first place he discovered that Miss Dalrymple was not entirely pleased at the publication of the story of her engagement to the prince; her position—­her family’s and that of Miss Van Rolsen, was such that newspaper advertising or notoriety could not but be distasteful.

“I hope people won’t think I keep a social secretary,” Mr. Heatherbloom heard her say.

Yes, heard her.  He was in the dogs’ “boudoir”; the conservatory adjoined.  He could not help being where he was; he belonged there at the time.  Nor could he help hearing; he didn’t try to listen; he certainly didn’t wish to, though she had a very sweet voice—­that soothed one to a species of lotus dream—­forgetfulness of soap-suds, or the odor of canine disinfectant permeating the white foam—­

“Why should they think you have a social secretary?” the voice of a man—­the prince—­inquired.

He had deep fine tones; truly Russian tones, with a subtle vibration in them.

“Because when such things are published about people their secretaries usually put them in,” returned the girl.

He was silent a moment; Mr. Heatherbloom thought he heard the breaking of the stem of a flower.

“You were very much irritated—­angry?” observed the prince at length, quietly.

“Weren’t you?” she asked.

“I?  No.  It is a bourgeois confession, perhaps.”

Mr. Heatherbloom sat up straighter; the water dripped from his fingers.

“I was pleased,” went on the sonorous low voice.  “I wished—­it were so!”

There was a sudden movement in the conservatory; a rustling of leaves, or of a gown; then—­Mr. Heatherbloom relaxed in surprise—­a peal of merry laughter filled the air.

“How apropos!  How well you said that!”

“Miss Dalrymple!” There was a slightly rising inflection in the man’s tones.  “You doubt my sincerity?”

“The sincerity of a Russian prince?  No, indeed!” she returned gaily.

“I am in earnest,” he said simply.

“Don’t be!” Mr. Heatherbloom could, in fancy, see the flash of a white hand amid red flowers; eyes dancing like violets in the wind.  He could perceive, also, as plainly as if he were in that other room, the deep ardent eyes of the prince downbent upon the blither ones, the commanding figure of the man near that other slender, almost illusive presence.  A flower to be grasped only by a bold wooer, like the prince!