McCutcheon took his cigar from his mouth.  “The woman who disappeared on the eve of her marriage?”

“Yes,” broke in Blake, “disappeared on the eve of her marriage to elope with some poet or painter, and set society by the ears.  Thoroughly modern and banal!”

The young diplomat glanced up once more.

“I don’t think there’s any suggestion of a lover.”

“Fact is more potent than suggestion, Billy.  Of course there is a lover.  Princesses don’t disappear alone.”

“You’re a Socialist, Ned.”  Billy’s eyes returned to his paper.  “Like all good Socialists, crammed to the neck with class bigotry.  Nobody is such an individualist as the man who advocates equality!”

Blake smiled.  “That seems to sound all right,” he said; “but it doesn’t remove the lover.”

The good-humored scepticism at last forced a way to Billy’s susceptibilities.

“Look here,” he said, crossly, “if hearing’s not believing, perhaps seeing is!  Look at these pictures; they’re not particularly modern or banal.”

He held out his paper, but Blake shook his head.

“No!  No, Billy, not for me.  If it was some little Rumanian gypsy who had run away from her tribe I’d take her to my heart and welcome.  But a Princess Davorska—­no!”

At this point McCutcheon stretched out his long arm and took the paper from Billy’s hand.  “Let’s have a squint!” he said.  “Lover or no lover, she must be a bit wide awake.”  And, curling himself up again, he began to read from the paper, in a monotonous murmuring voice:  “’The Princess, as well as being a woman of artistic accomplishments, is an ardent sportswoman, having in her early girlhood hunted and shot with keen zest on her father’s estates.  The above picture shows her at the age of seventeen, carrying a gun.’  By the Lord, she is wide awake!” he added, by way of comment.  “She is wide awake carrying that gun, but I’d lay my money on the second picture.  Say, Billy, she looks a queen in her court finery!”

But here real disgust crossed Blake’s face.  “Oh, that’ll do, Mac!  Give us peace about the woman.  I’m sick to death of all such nonsense.  We’re due in a couple of hours.  I think I’ll try for forty winks.”  He threw away his cigar and tucked his rug about him.

McCutcheon glanced at him, and, seeing that he was in earnest, handed the paper back to Billy.

“Thanks, Mac!” Blake murmured.  “Sorry if I was a bear!  Don’t switch off the light, it won’t bother me.”  He nodded, smiled, drew his rug closer about his knees, and settled himself to sleep with the ease of the accustomed traveller.

For close upon an hour complete silence reigned in the heated carriage.  Blake slept silently and peacefully; Billy went methodically through his papers, dropping them one by one at his feet as he finished with them; McCutcheon smoked, gazing into space with the blank expression of the strenuous man who has learned to utilize his momentary respites; while, stretched along the cushions of the carriage, his face hidden, his eyes wide open and attentive, lay the young Russian, his fingers tentatively caressing the treasure in the pocket of his coat.