“America for the Americans, Brussels for the Americans, England for the Americans, everything and everybody for the Americans, but nothing at all for these confounded foreigners.  Let the Italian marry anybody he pleases, just so long as he doesn’t interfere with an American.  Let the American marry anybody he pleases, and to perdition with all interference.  I’m for America against the world in love or in war.”

“Don’t forget, Mr. Savage, that you are a foreigner when on British soil,” remonstrated the Lady Jane, vigorously.

“My dear Lady Jane, an American is at home anywhere in this world.  If you could see some of the foreigners that land at Castle Garden you wouldn’t blame an American for absolutely, irrevocably and eternally refusing to be called a foreigner, even on the shores of Madagascar.  We are willing to be most anything, but I’ll be hanged if we’ll be foreigners.”

A week later Quentin was in Paris.  Savage was to join him in Brussels about the middle of August, and Lord and Lady Saxondale promised faithfully to come to that city at a moment’s notice.  He went blithely away with the firm conviction in his heart that it was not to be a fool’s errand.  But he was reckoning without the woman in the case.

“If you do marry her, Quentin, I’ve got just the place for you to live in, for a while at least.  I bought an old castle in Luxemburg a couple of years ago, just because the man who owned it was a friend and needed a few thousand pounds.  Frances calls it Castle Craneycrow.  It’s a romantic place, and would be a great deal better than a cottage for love.  You may have it whenever the time comes.  Nobody lives there now but the caretaker and a lot of deuced traditions.  We can discharge the caretaker and you can make fresh traditions.  Think it over, my boy, while you are dispatching the prince, the mamma and the fair victim’s ambition to become a real live princess.”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Bob,” exclaimed Quentin.  “I’ll not need your castle.  We’re going to live in the clouds.”

“Beware of the prince,” said Lady Frances.  “He is pretty high himself, you know.”

“Let the prince beware,” laughed back the departing guest.  “We can’t both live in the same cloud, you know.  I’ll push him off.”

On the day Quentin left Paris for Brussels he came face to face with Prince Ugo on one of the Parisian boulevards.  The handsome Italian was driving with Count Sallaconi and two very attractive ladies.  That the meeting was unexpected and undesired was made manifest by the anxious look which the prince shot over his shoulder after the carriage had passed.

When Quentin left Paris that night with Turk and his luggage, he was not the only passenger bound for Brussels.  At the Gare du Nord two men, one suspiciously like the Duke Laselli, took a compartment in the coach just ahead of Quentin.  The train was due to reach Brussels shortly after midnight, and the American had telegraphed for apartments at the Bellevue.  There had been a drizzle of rain all the evening, and it was good to be inside the car, even if the seats were uncomfortable.