A long, white, graceful craft was lying in the harbour.  It was in so close to the pier that he had no choice but to recognise it as a vessel of light draft.  He stared long and intently at the trim craft.

“Can I be dreaming?” he muttered, passing his hand over his eyes.  “Don’t lie to me, Selim!  Is it really there?” Then he uttered a loud cry of joy and started off down the slope with the speed of a race horse, shouting in the frenzy of an uncontrollable glee.

It was the Marquess of B——­’s white and blue yacht!

* * * * *

Three weeks later, Hollingsworth Chase stepped from the deck of the yacht to the pier in Marseilles; the next day he was in Paris, attended by the bewildered and almost useless Selim.  An old and valued friend, a campaigner of the war-time days, met him at the Gare de Lyon in response to a telegram.

“I’ll tell you the whole story of Japat, Arch, but not until to-morrow,” Chase said to him as they drove toward the Ritz.  “I arrived yesterday on the Marquess of B——­’s yacht—­the Cricket.  Do you know him?  Of course you do.  Everybody does.  The Cricket was cruising down my way and picked me up—­Bowles and me.  The captain came a bit out of his way to call at Aratat, but he had orders of some sort from the Marquess, by cable, I fancy, to stop off for me.”

He did not regard it as necessary to tell his correspondent friend that the Cricket had sailed from Marseilles with but one port in view—­Aratat.  He did not tell him that the Cricket had come with a message to him and that he was answering it in person, as it was intended that he should—­a message written six weeks before his arrival in France.  There were many things that Chase did not explain to Archibald James.

“You’re looking fine, Chase, old man.  Did you a lot of good out there.  You’re as brown as that Arab in the taximetre back there.  By Jove, old man, that Persian girl is ripping.  You say she’s his wife?  She’s—­” Chase broke in upon this far from original estimate of the picturesque Neenah.

“I say, Arch, there’s something I want to know before I go to the Marquess’s this evening.  I’m due there with my thanks.  He lives in the Boulevard St. Germain—­I’ve got the number all right.  Is one likely to find the house full of swells?  I’m a bit of a savage just now and I’m correspondingly timid.”

His friend stared at him for a moment.

“I can save you the trouble of going to the Marquess,” he said.  “He and the Marchioness are in London at present.  Left Paris a month ago.”

“What?  The house is closed?” in deep anxiety.

“I think not.  Servants are all there, I daresay.  Their place adjoins the Brabetz palace.  The Princess is his niece, you know.”

“You say the Brabetz palace is next door?” demanded Chase, steadying his voice with an effort.

“Yes—­the old Flaurebert mansion.  The Princess was to have been the social sensation of Paris this year.  She’s a wonderful beauty, you know.”