"Maud is not the kind of girl to take up with a stranger on board—"
"Don't glare at me like that! Love finds the way, it doesn't matter what kind of a girl she is. But listen to me, Lou; we've got to be mighty careful that Maud doesn't suspect that we're putting up a job on her. She'd balk at the gang-plank and that would be the end of it. She must not know that he is on board. Now, here's the idea," and he talked on in a strangely subdued voice for fifteen minutes, his enthusiasm mounting to such heights that she was fairly lifted to the seventh heaven he produced, and, for once in her life, she actually submitted to his bumptious argument without so much as a single protesting word.
The down train at two-seventeen had on board a most distinguished group of passengers, according to the Pullman conductor whose skilful conniving resulted in the banishment of a few unimportant creatures who had paid for chairs in the observation coach but who had to get out, whether or no, when Mr. Blithers loudly said it was a nuisance having everything on the shady side of the car taken "on a hot day like this." He surreptitiously informed the conductor that there was a prince in his party, and that highly impressed official at once informed ten other passengers that they had no business in a private car and would have to move up to the car ahead—and rather quickly at that.
The Prince announced that Lieutenant Dank had secured comfortable cabins on a steamer sailing Saturday, but he did not feel at liberty to mention the name of the boat owing to his determination to avoid newspaper men, who no doubt would move heaven and earth for an interview, now that he had become a person of so much importance in the social world. Indeed, his indentity was to be more completely obscured than at any time since he landed on American soil. He thanked Mr. Blithers for his offer to command the "royal suite" on the Jupiter, but declined, volunteering the somewhat curt remark that it was his earnest desire to keep as far away from royalty as possible on the voyage over. (A remark that Mr. Blithers couldn't quite fathom, then or afterward.)
Mrs. Blithers' retort to her husband's shocked comment on the un-princely appearance of the young man and the wofully ordinary suit of clothes worn by the Count, was sufficiently caustic, and he was silenced—and convinced. Neither of the distinguished foreigners looked the part of a nobleman.
"I wouldn't talk about clothes if I were you," Mrs. Blithers had said on the station platform. "Who would suspect you of being one of the richest men in America?" She sent a disdainful glance at his baggy knees and bulging coat pockets, and for the moment he shrank into the state of being one of the poorest men in America.
They were surprised and not a little perplexed by the fact that the Prince and his companion arrived at the station quite alone. Neither of the Kings accompanied them. There was, Mrs. Blithers admitted, food for thought in this peculiar omission on the part of the Prince's late host and hostess, and she would have given a great deal to know what was back of it. The "luggage" was attended to by the admirable Hobbs, there being no sign of a Red Roof servant about the place. Moreover, there seemed to be considerable uneasiness noticeable in the manner of the two foreigners. They appeared to be unnecessarily impatient for the train to arrive, looking at their watches now and again, and frequently sending sharp glances down the village street in the direction of Red Roof. Blithers afterwards remarked that they made him think of a couple of absconding cashiers. The mystery, however, was never explained.
Arriving at the Grand Central Terminal, Prince Robin and the Count made off in a taxi-cab, smilingly declining to reveal their hotel destination.
"But where am I to send my attorney with the agreement you are to sign, Prince?" asked Mr. Blithers, plainly irritated by the young man's obstinacy in declining to be "dropped" at his hotel by the Blithers motor.
"I shall come to your office at eleven to-morrow morning, Mr. Blithers," said Robin, his hat in his hand. He had bowed very deeply to Mrs. Blithers.