"Ah, you have said it, my dear Prince. That is what I want."
Apollo laughed. "Describe the girl," he said. "Is she fair or dark, tall or short, a slim Diana or a sumptuous Venus?"
"She is tall and slender, with the pink and white skin of a child; and she is dark-browed and yellow-haired, like the beauties of Austria," replied the Chancellor, doing justice to the enemy's charms, not so much through conscientious motives as because he desired to paint a 270 pleasing picture. "Her eyes are brown or violet; having nearly reached my threescore years and ten, I cannot tell you which. Her nose is of the Greek type, yet a trifle more piquant, it may be. Doubtless a poet would rave of her lips, red as geraniums on snow; and even I can affirm that when the lady looks down, and then looks up smiling with great play of dark curled lashes, the effect is somewhat striking. I can imagine that smile might quicken the pulses of a younger man than I."
"It would quicken mine only to hear you tell of it, if you had not put a maggot in my head that tickles me to laughter instead of raptures," said the Prince, who was fully mindful of his own supremacy over women. "Has this girl who calls herself De Courcy a little black mole on her forehead just above the left eye brow, and in that notable smile of hers, does the mouth point upward at the right, like a fairy sign-post showing the way to a small scar that masquerades as a dimple?"
The Chancellor gravely reflected for a moment, and then replied that 271 to the best of his belief both these marks were distinctly visible on the lady's countenance. He did not add that he had met her but once, and had no eye for delicate details; for whatever the Prince's theory might be, it seemed advisable to establish it. "Is it possible that you have met this dangerous young person?" he inquired, hiding eagerness.
"Well, I begin to believe that I have reason for thinking so; exactly why, I will tell you at another time—it means a confession. But a lady answering the description you have given might easily be in this neighbourhood—I'd heard she was in Rhaetia; in fact, when I suddenly made up my mind to come, I thought it not impossible that I might meet her. We'd quarrelled, after my having been weak enough one day to take her imprudently into my confidence concerning family affairs. This coup she has so nearly made may be by way of revenge on me. She's capable of the clever conception too; but where did she develop the mother? I fancy I have heard that there is a mother?"
"There is a marionette which answers to the name," drily announced the 272 Chancellor. "But mothers are articles of easy manufacture."
The Prince was immensely amused. "No, she wouldn't stick at a mother, if she wanted one," he chuckled, "and, while she was about it, she appears to have annexed a whole family tree as well. That mole and the scar-dimple—you're sure of them, Chancellor? And the drawing up of the lips to the right when she smiles?"
"Sure," calmly asseverated "Iron Heart."
"Then the more pieces in this little puzzle that I fit together, the more likely does it seem that your Miss de Courcy, who has been turning Rhaetia upside down—to say nothing of Rhaetia's Emperor—is neither more nor less than Miss Minnie Brand, one of the cleverest, and certainly one of the prettiest actresses England has owned for a century."