“By a ‘fair exchange’ you mean,” her aunt suggested, a little censoriously, “that you expected him to barter his country’s secrets for a touch of your fingers?”

“Or my lips, perhaps,” Maggie added, with a little grimace.  “Please don’t look so serious, Aunt.  I’m not really in love with Prince Shan, you know, and to-night I rather feel like marrying Nigel, if I can get him back again.  I like his waistcoat buttons, and the way he has tied his tie.”

“Too late, my dear,” Nigel warned her.  “I give you formal notice.  I have transferred my affections.”

“That decides me,” Maggie declared firmly.  “I shall collect you back again.  I hate to lose an admirer.”

“The nonsense you young people talk!” Mrs. Bollington Smith observed, as they reached the theatre.

Chalmers joined them soon after they had reached their box.  He sank into the empty place by Maggie’s side which Nigel had just vacated and leaned forward confidentially.

“So you’ve started the campaign,” he whispered.

“How do you know?” she enquired.

“I was at the Ritz to-night,” he told her, “at the far end of the room with my Chief and two other men.  We were behind you in the lounge afterwards.”

“I was so engrossed,” Maggie murmured.

Chalmers paused for a moment to watch the performance.  When he spoke again, his voice, was, for him, unusually serious.

“Young lady,” he said, “I told you on our first meeting my idea of diplomacy.  Truth!  No beating about the bush—­just the plain, unvarnished truth!  I have conceived an affection for you.”

“Goodness gracious!” Maggie exclaimed softly.  “Are you going to propose?”

“Nothing,” he assured her, “is farther from my thoughts.  Lest I should be misunderstood, let me substitute the term ‘affectionate interest’ for ‘affection.’  I have felt uneasy ever since I saw Prince Shan watching you across the restaurant to-night.”

“Did he really watch me?” Maggie asked complacently.

“He not only watched you,” Chalmers assured her, “but he thought about you—­and very little else.”

“Congratulate me, then,” she replied.  “I am on the way to success.”

Chalmers frowned.

“I’m not quite so sure,” he said.  “You’ll think I’m an illogical sort of person, but I’ve changed my mind about your role in this little affair.”

“Why?”

“Because I am afraid of Prince Shan,” he answered deliberately.

She looked at him from behind her fan.  Her eyes sparkled with interest.  If there were any other feeling underneath, she showed no trace of it.

“What a queer word for you to use!”

He nodded.

“I know it.  I would back you, Lady Maggie, to hold your own against any male creature breathing, of your own order and your own race, but Prince Shan plays the game differently.  He possesses every gift which women and men both admire, but he hasn’t our standards.  Life for him means power.  A wish for him entails its fulfilment.”