"That will do, Glück," he said, as he gave him his hat and gloves.
"Don't let me be disturbed."
And Glück, with his imperturbable mahogany face, silently withdrew to mount guard without the door.
The Prince sat down, lighted a cigarette, and stared moodily out of the window, down upon the shifting crowd which still thronged the beach. His hand, hanging inert by his side, became suddenly the receptacle for a moist nose.
"Ah, Jax; and did she pat you on the head, old boy?" he asked. "And are you properly proud?"
Jax wiggled his remnant of a tail.
"Would you like to belong to her, Jax, and get patted every day? Yet she wouldn't take you—snapped me off short as that stump of yours when I offered you to her. Why was that, Jax?"
Jax couldn't say, not being familiar with the ways of fair Americans, and the Prince patted him softly on his nobbly crown.
"Just the same, she was a beauty, Jax; slim, straight, full of fire—a thoroughbred; and with a sense of humour, my dear, which you will find in not many women. Did you notice her cheeks, Jax, and her eyes? But of course not; you were very properly grovelling before her. And I owe you eternal gratitude, old boy; but for you, I'd have stalked past without seeing her. That would have been a pity, wouldn't it?"
There was a knock at the door and Glück's head appeared.
"I thought I told you," began the Prince—