“Don’t be,” she repeated.  “You are so much more charming when you are not.  I think I heard that line in a play once.  One of the Robertson kind; it was given by a stock company in San Francisco.  That’s where I came from, you know.  Have you ever been there?”

“No,” said the prince slowly.

Dark eyes trying to beat down the merriment in the blue ones!  Mr. Heatherbloom could, in imagination, “fill in” all the stage details.  If it only were “stage” dialogue; “stage” talk; not “playing with love”, in earnest!

“Playing with love!” He had read a book of that name once; somewhere.  In Italy?—­yes.  It sounded like an Italian title.  Something very disagreeable happened to the heroine.  A woman, or a girl, can not lightly “play with love” with a Sicilian.  But, of course, the prince wasn’t a Sicilian.

“No,” he was saying now with admirable poise, in answer to her question, “I haven’t visited your wonderful Golden Gate, but I hope to go there some day—­with you!” he added.  His words were simple; the accent alone made them sound formidable; it seemed to convey an impregnable purpose, one not to be shaken or disturbed.

Mr. Heatherbloom felt vaguely disturbed; his heart pounded oddly.  He half started to get up, then sank back.  He waited for another peal of laughter; it didn’t come.  Why?

“Of course I should have no objection to your being one of a train party,” said Miss Dalrymple at length.

“That isn’t just what I mean,” returned the prince in his courtliest tones.  But it wasn’t hard to picture him now with a glitter in his gaze,—­immovable, sure of himself.

There was a rather long pause; broken once more by Miss Dalrymple:  “Shall we not return to the music room?”

That interval?  What had it meant?  Mute acquiescence on her part, a down-turning of the imperious lashes before the steadfastness of the other’s look?—­tacit assent?  The casting off of barriers, the opening of the gates of the divine inner citadel?  Mr. Heatherbloom was on his feet now.  He took a step toward the door, but paused.  Of course!  Something clammy had fallen from his hand; lay damp and dripping on the rag.  He stared at it—­a bar of soap.

What had he been about to do—­he!—­to step in there—­into the conservatory, with his bar of soap?—­grotesque anomaly!  His face wore a strange expression; he was laughing inwardly.  Oh, how he was laughing at himself!  Fortunately he had a saving sense of humor.

What had next been said in the conservatory?  What was now being said there?  He heard words but they had no meaning for him.  “I will send you the second volume of The Fire and Sword trilogy,” went on the prince.  “One of my ancestors figures in it.  The hero—­who is not exactly a hero, perhaps, in the heroine’s mind, for a time—­does what he must do; he has what he must have.  He claims what nature made for him; he knows no other law than that of his imperishable inner self.  I, too, must rise to those heights my eyes are set on.  It must be; it is written.  We are fatalists, we Russians near the Tartar line!  And you and I”—­fervently—­“were predestined for each other.”