“You shall have the annual report next week.—­Temperance City,” turning to Rhodes, his balmy gaze aimed straight over her head, “is a scheme to protect people of small means in the churches, especially women, from wrecking their little all in unwise investments.  It is a town on the line of the Pacific Railroad.  Lots are only sold to colonists who are tee-totallers and members of some church.  The stock is owned largely by the same class.”

“Oh, almost altogether!” cried the little man enthusiastically.  “Mr. Van Ness’s name, as you will understand, gives it authority among all religious people.  We distribute prospectuses at camp-meetings and at all sectarian seaside resorts.  Shares go off this summer like hot cakes.  There’s nothing like religion, sir, to back up business enterprise.  There’s Stokes, for instance.  His shoes are sold from New Jersey to Oregon on the strength of the hymns he has written.”

“Yes,” said the judge solemnly.  “We used to keep religion too much in the chimney-corner—­spoke of it with bated breath.  But it’s in trade now, sir.  We hear every day of our Christian shoe-makers and railway kings and statesmen.  The world moves!”

“Moves?  Oh there’s no lever like religion!” gasped the little man.  “No advertisement to equal it.  And a good man ought to succeed!  Are the swindlers to take all the fat of the land?  Does not the good Book say, ’To the laborers belong the spoils’?”

“But this is so charming to me!” cried the princess.  “We foreigners have so few opportunities of looking into the workings of your politics and trade!”

Van Ness bowed respectfully.

“And the State Home for destitute children?” asked a raw-boned Scotch-Irishman.  “We’re interested in that here in New York.  We’ve subscribed largely, as you’re aware, Mr. Van Ness.  May I ask when you wull begin the buildin’?”

“In the spring, I trust.  If enough funds are collected.”

“And hoo air the funds invested in the mean while?”

“Oh, in corner-lots in Temperance City.”

The committee-men had hurried away to catch the next train:  lunch was over, and Mr. Van Ness stood apart on the lawn under the drooping branches of a willow, when the princess tripped lightly out to him.

“You have an object in coming here?  You had an object in bringing those men to-day and opening out your affairs.  What is it?”

He regarded her composedly for a moment without answering:  “You always erred, Charlotte, in ascribing your own skill in intrigue to me.  It was a flattering mistake.  What I am to others I am to myself.”

She laughed, a merry, hearty laugh:  “Yes, Pliny, because you are not satisfied with cheating the world and the God that made you into the belief that you are a Christian, but you parade in your godliness before yourself.  There is not a spot within you sound enough for your real soul to lodge in.  It is all like that,” setting her foot viciously on a fallen apple.  “Rotten to the core!”