“Yes,” said Stephen, “I see.”

“Ach!” exclaimed the disgusted German, “will nothing move you?  I have seen German princesses that are peasant women beside her.  How she carries it off!  See, the Prince is laughing!”

Stephen saw, and horror held him in a tremor.  His one thought was of escape.  What if she should raise her eyes, and amid those vulgar stares discern his own?  And yet that was within him which told him that she would look up.  It was only a question of moments, and then,—­and then she would in truth despise him!  Wedged tightly between the people, to move was to be betrayed.  He groaned.

Suddenly he rallied, ashamed of his own false shame.  This was because of one whom he had known for the short, space of a day—­whom he was to remember for a lifetime.  The man he worshipped, and she detested.  Abraham Lincoln would not have blushed between honest clerks and farmers Why should Stephen Brice?  And what, after all, was this girl to him?  He could not tell.  Almost the first day he had come to St. Louis the wires of their lives had crossed, and since then had crossed many times again, always with a spark.  By the might of generations she was one thing, and he another.  They were separated by a vast and ever-widening breach only to be closed by the blood and bodies of a million of their countrymen.  And yet he dreamed of her.

Gradually, charmed like the simple people about him, Stephen became lost in the fascination of the scene.  Suddenly confronted at a booth in a public fair with the heir to the English throne, who but one of her own kind might have carried it off so well, have been so complete a mistress of herself?  Since, save for a heightened color, Virginia gave no sign of excitement.  Undismayed, forgetful of the admiring crowd, unconscious of their stares until—­until the very strength of his gaze had compelled her own.  Such had been the prophecy within him.  Nor did he wonder because, in that multitude of faces, her eyes had flown so straightly homeward to his.

With a rough effort that made an angry stir, Stephen flung the people aside and escaped, the astonished Richter following in his wake.  Nor could the honest German dissuade him from going back to the office for the rest of the day, or discover what had happened.

But all through the afternoon that scene was painted on the pages of Stephen’s books.  The crude booth in the darkened way.  The free pose of the girl standing in front of her companions, a blue wisp of autumn sunlight falling at her feet.  The young Prince laughing at her sallies, and the elderly gentleman smiling with benevolence upon the pair.

CHAPTER XII

INTO WHICH A POTENTATE COMES

Virginia danced with the Prince, “by Special Appointment,” at the ball that evening.  So did her aunt, Mrs. Addison Colfax.  So likewise was Miss Belle Cluyme among those honored and approved.  But Virginia wore the most beautiful of her Paris gowns, and seemed a princess to one watching from the gallery.  Stephen was sure that his Royal Highness made that particular dance longer than the others.  It was decidedly longer than the one he had with Miss Cluyme, although that young lady had declared she was in heaven.