“I have a relative near the throne, you know. I sometimes spend several weeks with him at the palace.”
“Then you know the king?” cried Kate, interestedly. “I have read so much about him. And the crown prince? Is he as handsome as the newspapers say he is?”
It was an embarrassing question, and the prince drank a half-glass of champagne before answering his fair vis-à-vis.
“I may be prejudiced in his favor,” he said, at length, “but he is young and in good health, and, I think, pleasing to the eye.” Then he added, hurriedly, “But I am here to learn all about this country, not to talk about my own. Tell me, is Chicago far from New York?”
The conversation gradually drifted into safer channels, and Count Szalaki had begun to feel that his indiscretion had given him the only nervous shock that he would experience during the evening, when the butler approached the guest’s chair and said, apologetically:
“Pardon me, monsieur, but this note has just been presented at the door by a man who says that it must reach you at once.”
Count Szalaki’s face flushed and then turned very pale. His hand trembled slightly as he took the envelope from the outstretched tray. It bore the name he had chosen for his incognito, and in the corner were written, in the Rexanian dialect, the words “Important and immediate.”
“Will you forgive me,” said the count, glancing at Mrs. Strong, “if I open this at once? There seems to be some mystery about it.”
His hostess smiled and bowed, and the youth opened the missive and read the following startling sentences, written, like the words on the envelope, in the purest Rexanian:
“Your Royal Highness,—A great danger threatens you. But trust to us. We are your friends. Dismiss your carriage on leaving the house, and walk down the avenue. Two men will join you who love you and your house. We are under oath to guard you from harm, and take this way to warn you. In the name of Rexania, be prudent.”