By the grand staircase we ran into the Prince.  His face wore a dissatisfied air.

“I was looking for Your Highness,” he said to Gretchen.  “Your carriage is at the curb.  Permit me to assist you.  Ah, yes,” in English, “it is Herr Winthrop.  I regret that the interview of to-morrow will have to be postponed till Monday.”

“Any time,” said I, watching Gretchen whose eyes widened, “will be agreeable to me.”

Gretchen made as though to speak, but the Prince anticipated her.

“It is merely a little discussion, Your Highness,” he said, “which Herr Winthrop and I left unfinished earlier in the evening.  Good night.”

On the way to the cloak room it kept running through my mind that I had lost.  Thursday?—­she said Thursday was the day of her wedding?  It would be an evil day for me.

Pembroke was in the cloak room.

“Going?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, let us go together.  Where shall it be—­Egypt or the steppes of Siberia?”

“Home first,” said I; “then we shall decide.”

When we got into the carriage we lit cigars.  For some reason Pembroke was less talkative than usual.  Suddenly he pulled down the window, and a gust of snow blew in.  Then up went the window again, but the cigar was gone.

“Has anything gone wrong?” I asked.

“‘One more unfortunate. . . .  Make no deep scrutiny!’” he quoted.  “Jack, she wouldn’t think of it, not for a moment.  Perhaps I was a trifle too soon.  Yes, she is a Princess, indeed.  As for me, I shall go back to elephants and tigers; it’s safer.”

“‘The Bridge of Sighs,’” said I.  “Let us cross it for good and all.”

“And let it now read ‘Sighs Abridged.’”

He asked me no questions, and I silently thanked him.  Once in our rooms, he drank a little more brandy than I thought good for one “who may or may not live the year out.”  I told him so.  He laughed.  And then I laughed.  Both of us did it theatrically; it was laughter, but it was not mirth.

“Cousin,” said I, “that’s the idea; let us laugh.  Love may sit on the windowsill and shiver to death.”

“That fellow Anacreon was a fool,” said Pembroke.  “If the child of Venus had been left then and there, what a lot of trouble might have been averted!  What do you say to this proposition; the north, the bears and the wolves?  I’ve a friend who owns a shooting box a few miles across the border.  There’s bears and gray wolves galore.  Eh?”

“I must get back to work,” said I, but half-heartedly.

“To the devil with your work!  Throw it over.  You’ve got money; your book is gaining you fame.  What’s a hundred dollars a week to you, and jumping from one end of the continent to the other with only an hour’s notice?”

“I’ll sleep on it.”

“Good.  I’ll go to bed now, and you can have the hearth and the tobacco to yourself.”