“You see I have followed your advice,” said Claudius, holding out his hand.

“Always do that, and you will yet taste greatness,” said the other cheerfully.  “You look like a crown prince like that.  Perfectly immense.”

“I suppose I am rather big,” said Claudius apologetically, not catching the American idiom.  Mr. Barker, however, did not explain himself, for he was thinking of other things.

“We will go very soon.  Excuse the liberty, Professor, but you might have your boots blacked.  There is a little cad down the backstairs who does it.”

“Of course,” answered Claudius, and disappeared within.  A small man who was coming out paused and turned to look after him, putting up his eyeglass.  Then he took off his hat to Mr. Barker.

“Pardon, Monsieur,” he began, “if I take the liberty of making an inquiry, but could you inform me of the name of that gentleman, whose appearance fills me with astonishment, and whose vast dimensions obscure the landscape of Baden?”

Mr. Barker looked at the small man for a moment very gravely.

“Yes,” said he pensively, “his royal highness is a large man certainly.”  And while his interlocutor was recovering enough to formulate another question, Mr. Barker moved gently away to a flowerstand.

When Claudius returned his friend was waiting for him, and himself pinned a large and expensive rose in the Doctor’s buttonhole.  Mr. Barker surveyed his work—­the clipped head, the new hat, the shiny boots and the rose—­with a satisfied air, such as Mr. Barnum may have worn when he landed Jumbo on the New York pier.  Then he called a cab, and they drove away.

CHAPTER IV.

The summer breath of the roses blew sweetly in through the long windows of the Countess’s morning-room from the little garden outside as Barker and Claudius entered.  There was an air of inhabited luxury which was evidently congenial to the American, for he rubbed his hands softly together and touched one or two objects caressingly while waiting for the lady of the house.  Claudius glanced at the table and took up a book, with that singular student habit that is never lost.  It was a volume of English verse, and in a moment he was reading, just as he stood, with his hat caught between the fingers that held the book, oblivious of countesses and visits and formalities.  There was a rustle and a step on the garden walk, and both men turned towards the open glass door.  Claudius almost dropped the vellum-covered poet, and was very perceptibly startled as he recognised the lady of his Heidelberg adventure—­the woman who had got, as by magic, a hold over his thoughts, so that he dreamed of her and wondered about her, sleeping and waking.

Dark-eyed Countess Margaret, all clad in pure white, the smallest of lace fichus just dropped over her heavy hair, moved smoothly up the steps and into the room.