"You will permit me to call upon you," he begged eagerly.
"Will you come? We are at the Milan Court for a little time. My father is trying to get a house. My sister is coming over to look after him. I am unfortunately only a bird of passage."
"Then I shall not run the risk of missing you," he declared. "I shall call very soon."
Immelan intervened,—grim, suspicious, a little disturbed. For some reason or other, the meeting between these two young people seemed to have made him uneasy.
"Your father has desired me to present his excuses to Lord Dorminster," he announced, "and to escort you back to the Milan. He has been telephoned for from the Consulate."
Naida rose to her feet with some apparent reluctance.
"You will not delay your call too long, Lord Dorminster?" she enjoined, as she gave him her hand. "I shall expect you the first afternoon you are free."
"I shall not delay giving myself the pleasure," he assured her.
She nodded and made her adieux to the Prince. The two men stood together and watched her depart with her companion.
"Really, one gains much through being an onlooker," the Prince reflected. "There go the spirit of Russia and the spirit of Germany. You dabble in these things, my friend Dorminster. Can you guess what they are met for—for whom they wait?"