The tall, exquisitely-groomed figure of his new son-in-law, the Prince d’Antri, blocked the threshold. With him was Blanche.
“Do we intrude?” asked d’Antri, blandly, as he ushered his wife through the doorway and placed a chair for her. Caleb watched him without reply. The multifarious branches of social usage always affected him with contemptuous hopelessness. He saw no sense in them; but neither, as he confessed disgustedly to himself, could he, even if he chose, possibly acquire them.
“We don’t intrude, I hope,” repeated the prince, closing the door behind him, and sitting down near the littered centre table.
“Keep on hoping!” vouchsafed Conover gruffly. “What am I to do for you?”
He could never grow accustomed to this foreign son-in-law whom he had known but two days. Obedient, for once, to his wife, and to his daughter’s written instructions, he had yielded to the marriage, had consented to its performance at the American Embassy at Paris rather than at the white marble Pompton Avenue “Mausoleum,” and had readily allowed himself to be convinced that the union meant a social stride for the entire family such as could never otherwise have been attained.
His wife and daughter had returned from Europe just before the reception (whose details had, by his own command, been left wholly to Caleb), bringing with them the happy bridegroom. Caleb had never before seen a prince. In his youth, fairy tales had not been his portion; so he had not even the average child’s conception of a mediæval Being in gold-spangled doublet and hose, to guide him. Hence his ideas had been more than shadowy. What he had seen was a very tall, very slender, very handsome personage, whose costumes and manner a keener judge of fashion would have decided were on a par with the princely command of English: perfect, but a trifle too carefully accentuated to appeal to Yankee tastes.
Beyond the most casual intercourse and table talk there had been hitherto no scope for closer acquaintanceship between the two men. The reception had taken up everyone’s time and thoughts. Caleb had, however, studied the prince from afar, and had sought to apply to him some of the numberless classifications in which he was so unerringly wont to place his fellow-men. But none of the ready-made moulds seemed to fit the newcomer.
“What can I do for you?” repeated Conover, looking at his watch. “In a few minutes I’m expecting some——”
“We shall not detain you long. We have come to speak to you on a—a rather delicate theme.”
“Delicate?” muttered Caleb, glancing up from the politely embarrassed prince to his daughter. “Well, speak it out, then. The best treatment for delicate things is a little healthy exposure. What is it?”