"I cannot sit here and listen to his fool talk any longer," exclaimed the General, rising from the table in some heat. "If you boys are going to stir up the game it is time you were about it. Princess Teskla would be delighted to hear your definition of love, Nick."
"Life's fires burn low in the aged," smiled Nick, looking at me.
"So?" said the Prince, whom nothing escaped, "why should Teskla be interested?"
"We have reason to believe that the King's daughter is suffering from loneliness, such as young Nicholas describes," said the General grimly.
"Why should she?" said the Prince. "She is surrounded by the court at Nischon. If any one is lonely I should think it would be my sister. She has often complained of living in the country, seeing no one. How can one be lonely in the city? Teskla has all the gentlemen of the world's consulates to help her while away the time; she may travel at will; while my sister must always be by my father's side; she may not travel; she may not see any one."
The Prince either purposely refused, or actually failed, to see the import of the General's words and the General was too loyal to make them clearer. So, drifting from one subject to another, we followed the old man to the castle door where the hunters and their dogs were idling away their time.
While waiting for their young master, the large army of hunters had been amusing themselves at their own discretion. They were dark-eyed, handsome Bharbazonians, the finest horsemen in the world, riding with all the ease and abandon of their Cossack brethren. For the saying in Bharbazonia is, "Scratch a Russian and you will find a Cossack; scratch a Cossack and you will find a Bharbazonian." They were all dressed alike in the favourite green cloth of the country, and all carried clusters of long-handled spears or pikes, by which the wild boar was to be killed as he broke cover and charged the horse and rider.
The Prince, unaided, mounted the black which had thrown him at sight of our automobile. He waited for Nick and me to mount the animals which the groom had saddled while we breakfasted. Our horses were apart from the rest and Nick and I were out of ear-shot of the Prince when we met.
"What chance have you with Solonika?" he said, in a low voice. "She is a Princess and you are only an American."
"None whatever, Nick," I said. "You are right; Princesses of reigning houses do not wed Americans."