“I wish he were,” she answered, looking lazily out of the window.

He bent over her.

“Why?”

“I would persuade him to send me home again,” she answered coldly.

The Duchess looked up from her knitting.  “Your husband has saved you the journey,” she remarked, “even if you were able to work upon the Prince’s good nature to such an extent.”

Lucille started round eagerly.

“What do you mean?” she cried.

“Your husband is in London,” the Duchess answered.

Lucille laughed with the gaiety of a child.  Like magic the lines from beneath her eyes seemed to have vanished.  Lady Carey watched her with pale cheeks and malevolent expression.

“Come, Prince,” she cried mockingly, “it was only a week ago that you assured me that my husband could not leave America.  Already he is in London.  I must go to see him.  Oh, I insist upon it.”

Saxe Leinitzer glanced towards the Duchess.  She laid down her knitting.

“My dear Countess,” she said firmly, “I beg that you will listen to me carefully.  I speak to you for your own good, and I believe I may add, Prince, that I speak with authority.”

“With authority!” the Prince echoed.

“We all,” the Duchess continued, “look upon your husband’s arrival as inopportune and unfortunate.  We are all agreed that you must be kept apart.  Certain obligations have been laid upon you.  You could not possibly fulfil them with a husband at your elbow.  The matter will be put plainly before your husband, as I am now putting it before you.  He will be warned not to attempt to see or communicate with you as your husband.  If he or you disobey the consequences will be serious.”

Lucille shrugged her shoulders.

“It is easy to talk,” she said, “but you will not find it easy to keep Victor away when he has found out where I am.”

The Prince intervened.

“We have no objection to your meeting,” he said, “but it must be as acquaintances.  There must be no intermission or slackening in your task, and that can only be properly carried out by the Countess Radantz and from Dorset House.”

Lucille smothered her disappointment.

“Dear me,” she said.  “You will find Victor a little hard to persuade.”

There was a moment’s silence.  Then the Prince spoke slowly, and watching carefully the effect of his words upon Lucille.

“Countess,” he said, “it has been our pleasure to make of your task so far as possible a holiday.  Yet perhaps it is wiser to remind you that underneath the glove is an iron hand.  We do not often threaten, but we brook no interference.  We have the means to thwart it.  I bear no ill-will to your husband, but to you I say this.  If he should be so mad as to defy us, to incite you to disobedience, he must pay the penalty.”

A servant entered.

“Mr. Reginald Brott is in the small drawing-room, your Grace,” he announced.  “He enquired for the Countess Radantz.”