“One doesn’t have to go to a shooting box to bag it, though,” said Sallaconi, mischievously.

“I think the hunter uses bow and arrow exclusively,” added Ugo, and there was a general laugh, which sent a streak of red up Dickey’s cheeks.  If the Russian’s news was true he had been purposely slighted by the Saxondales.  And yet it was not altogether humiliation or wounded pride that brought the red to his cheek.  He and the Lady Jane had quarrelled just before he left her, and while he hated her and she hated him and all that, still he did not care to hear her name bandied about by the wine sippers at this delectable table.

“What are they talking about?” asked the American millionaire of Dickey, his curiosity aroused by the laughter of a moment before.

“About as nasty as they can,” growled Dickey.  “That’s their style, you know.”

“Whew!  You don’t have much of an opinion of nobility.  Beware of the prince,” said the other, in a low tone.

“You couldn’t insult some of them with a deliberate and well-aimed kick,” remarked the younger man, sourly.  The Duke Laselli’s ears turned a shade pinker under his oily, swarthy skin, for the words penetrated them in spite of the speaker’s caution.

“A toast,” said the Russian prince, arising from his seat beside Ravorelli.  The guests arose and glasses almost met in a long line above the center of the table.  Ugo alone remained seated as if divining that they were to drink to him.  For the first time Quentin closely observed the Russian.  He was tall and of a powerful frame, middle-aged and the possessor of a strong, handsome face on which years of dissipation had left few weakening marks.  His eyes were narrow and as blue as the sky, his hair light and bushy, his beard coarse and suggestive of the fierceness of the wild boar.  His voice was clear and cutting, and his French almost perfect.  “We drink to the undying happiness of our host, the luckiest prince in all the world.  May he always know the bliss of a lover and never the cares of a husband; may his wedded state be an endless love story without a prosaic passage; may life with the new Princess of Ravorelli be a poem, a song, a jub late, with never a dirge between its morn and its midnight.”

“And a long life to him,” added Quentin, clearly.  As they drank the eyes of Prince Ugo were upon the last speaker, and there was a puzzled expression in them.  Count Sallaconi’s black eyebrows shot up at the outer ends and a curious grimness fastened itself about his mouth and nose.

“I thank you, gentlemen,” responded Ugo, arising.  “Will you divide the toast with me in proposing the happiness of the one who is to bring all these good things into my life?” The half-emptied glasses were drained.  Dickey Savage’s eyes met Quentin’s in a long look of perplexity.  At last an almost imperceptible twinkle, suggestive of either mirth or skepticism, manifested itself in his friend’s eyes and the puzzled observer was satisfied.