Of course, I pointedly ignored her, but it had no effect; for the next time her greeting was only the more effusively intimate.  Naturally, the people stared.  I felt sure they winked at one another knowingly, when my back was turned.  The whole situation was intensely irritating and growing more so every day; and my patience, never long at best, must have been a trifle uncertain for those around me.

I think I am not an unjust man, by nature; but some provocations would make even the best tempers quick and squally.  And, then, what is the good of being an Archduke, if one may not flare out occasionally!

I was a bit lonely, too.  The King was in the North and the Princess was with him—­and so, for a time, was Lotzen, I happened to know; though I understood he had, now, left them and was returning to Dornlitz.  I wished him a long journey and a slow one.

His suave courtesy was becoming unbearable; and my sorest trial was to receive it calmly and to meet it in kind.  Truly, if he had found a brilliant leading woman in Madeline Spencer, he had an equally brilliant leading man in himself.

I was no possible match for him; and I could feel the sneer behind his smile.  I wanted to give him a good body beating—­and I was sure he knew it, and that it only amused him.  I could, now, quite understand the rage which makes a man walk up to another and smash him in the face without a word of preliminary.  I would have given five years of life to do that to Lotzen.

And, instead, I had to smile—­and smile—­and smile.  Bah! it makes me shiver.

He must have fancied I wished him a long absence, for he returned with astonishing promptness.  I saw him the next afternoon in the Officers’ Club—­and our greeting was almost effusive.  In fact, if anything were required to prove how intensely we despised each other, this demonstrative cordiality supplied it.  It was so hollow it fairly resounded with derision.

“I’ll ride over to Headquarters with you,” he said.

“I’m walking,” I answered.

“Good, I’ll walk, too,” he replied.

So, we set out—­the orderly following with the Duke’s horse.

“When did you come in?” I asked—­knowing perfectly well the very hour of his arrival.

“Last night, on the Express from the North,” he answered—­knowing that I already knew it.

“Had a good time, of course?” I remarked.

“Delightful—­we wished for you.”

“It’s astonishing how kind you all are to the stranger,” I said.

He shot a quick glance at me.

“We don’t regard you as a stranger, my dear cousin,” he protested.

“I believe you,” said I.  “Judged by the way His Majesty and the Princess, and you have treated me, the heir of Hugo might never have lived beyond the Kingdom.”

This brought another look.

“The Dalbergs don’t do things by halves,” he answered.