"There will be no difficulty on that score," the duke remarked. "Your estates belong to you personally, and their sale should net a million or more."
Suddenly he gave a start and arose swiftly to his feet.
"I beg your pardon, Oscar," he ejaculated, in chagrin. "My preoccupation has made me forget entirely my desire to meet your—wife. This lady is——"
He glanced at Shirley with a courtly inclination, just in time to see her snatch her hand from Barry's grasp and spring to her feet with blazing cheeks. The prince saw it, too, and his eyes twinkled.
"I have not the honor," he said quietly. "My wife is just recovering from an illness which has been the cause of most of these complications. Mr. Lawrence, will you be so good as to present us?"
With swiftly recovered composure, Shirley acknowledged the introduction with a naïve dignity; and, when they had all seated themselves again, the prince begged for a recital of Barry's adventures.
"Extraordinary and most diverting," he said when the tale had been told. "Perhaps a little more amusing in retrospect. My dear Mr. Lawrence, I feel more than ever indebted to you for what you have done. When I started the ball rolling last Monday morning I had no conception of the strenuous experiences I was bringing upon you. You see, I had left Ostrau secretly with only Watkins, my American secretary, who has been with me for years, but I was almost certain of being followed. I hoped, however, that we should succeed in losing ourselves somewhere in the South or West before our trail was picked up. I should explain, perhaps, that my wife and I were married in Paris, where she was spending the winter. She was Miss Isabel Patterson, of Baltimore. We sailed under assumed names; or, rather, under a name I used in England during our exile——"
"I beg your pardon," Lawrence put in, "but was it Nordstrom?"
"Why, yes. How did you know?"
"I met a friend of yours who had known you at Cambridge. He was an Englishman named Brandon."