"Yes, I think I have found her," said Warren and commencing at the moment when the boys parted on the street, he gave Ivan an account of his morning's discoveries.
"Good! Good!" said Ivan. "We will go together this time, and together we will rescue our pretty little Elinor. Have you made any plans?"
"No, I haven't," confessed Warren. "I don't know what ails me; I seem to be perfectly brainless today. It looks like I am losing everybody that belongs to me."
Ivan shrugged his shoulders. "Look at me," he said. "My mother long dead, my father somewhere on the field of battle, or lying dead in the trenches. I do not know; but I must not think. What I want to do is to save Professor Morris, my second father, and Evelyn and Jack and Elinor, who are as sisters and brother to me. Let us start and plan as we go."
"Have you any money?" asked Warren. "I have not a single copper."
"Nor I," said Ivan.
"We ought to have some," said Warren. "We might have to bribe those people."
Ivan laughed, and felt down his blouse. "This might help," he said. "I hate to give the small one up. It has been in the family, always worn by the eldest son, for more generations than I know; but if we have to give it, it will come back. It always has." He offered Warren two rings, magnificent jewels.
Warren shook his head. "I hope we won't have to use them," he said.
"What of that?" said Ivan. "Jewels, even family jewels, do not count for much beside the dear ones. Ah, Warren," said Ivan, "it is hard for boys to talk, even here in Poland, where it is easier to say what is in one's heart than it seems to be with you Americans. But let me tell you now all that I think. We do not know what we may get into today, what peril—maybe death. I feel danger approaching; I cannot say how. All the people of my house have been able to foresee disaster. What it is I know not. So I will say that so long as I do live, I will never cease to love you and yours. I want you to take this ring that we have held so long and if we are parted, wear it for the sake of Prince Ivan of Poland."