"I am Dr. Dale Wharton and this is Mr. Nicholas Fremsted."
She returned the compliment.
"I am Solonika, the Prince's sister," she replied.
We both bowed again like two automatons controlled by the same string.
"I see that you are not English," she added.
"No," Nick replied quickly as if he were not sure of my answer, "we are both Americans."
"So?" she said, looking at Nick as if she were trying to place him in her memory. Her quizzical expression reminded me of the Prince when he had watched Nick in the same manner.
"Now that we have been introduced most properly," she continued with the shadow of a smile, "perhaps you will sit down and have tea with me. Perhaps also I may make amends for my father's seeming lack of hospitality."
"Therese," she called to a French maid who promptly emerged from behind a Japanese screen in the rear of the room, "chairs for the gentlemen."
While Nick engaged the Princess in conversation I had opportunity to examine the summer-house. It has always been my belief that one reveals character in the arrangement and decoration of one's favourite rooms. The little den had the atmosphere of a college man's smoking room, except for the flowers that were banked high at the windows which formed the wall of the summer-house on the side toward the road. Here and there convenient openings were left for a view of the highway. If the Princess had fitted up this lounging place out of a feeling of monotony which remote living in the castle brought her, she succeeded admirably in arriving at privacy and at the same time avoiding loneliness.