"Oh, ho!" said the latter. He started to laugh, then checked himself sharply and patted his friend's shoulder. "So that's it? Never mind, Don, you'll soon get over it. I wouldn't advise you to let this—er—fancy of yours go too far. They don't take kindly here to presumptuous strangers who show an interest in their princesses."
Fenton squared around, as belligerent and impetuous again as ever. "Look here, Percy," he demanded eagerly, "don't you think there would be a chance? Can't these ten-centuries-behind-the-times ideas be overcome when new-world determination and wealth and—well unbounded love, are combined to overcome them?"
"The idea's a new one," returned Varden. "As things have been up to the present you haven't the ghost of a chance. But there's going to be an upheaval, a general mix-up around here before the war is over, and perhaps Ironia will come out of it with some new ideas. Anyway, all's fair in love and war, and you're in both, I guess, now. Here's luck to you, Don, you headstrong old smasher of social barriers! I don't wish Miridoff any particular bad luck, but if I get a chance I'll direct a bullet his way myself."
"But look here," he added quickly, as another thought struck him, "you shouldn't be standing there. You're a marked man, you know, and you certainly make a fair target standing in this light. We had better be off now for home. I'll just hunt up my wife and we'll get away. By the way, I took the liberty of having your trunks sent up to our place. You'll stay with us from now on."
He drifted away and Fenton walked slowly back into the ball-room which was now beginning to thin out. For a few minutes he stood staring into the swaying ranks before him with eyes that saw nothing. He felt constrained and gloomy again, so that the almost Oriental splendour of the scene and the sensuous lilt of the music had no appeal for him. Then he came suddenly to himself, as though startled into consciousness by an electric shock. His glance had been arrested in its aimless course and held by the glance of another. Across forty feet of ball-room, interrupted by the frequent passing of whirling couples through the line of vision, his glance held that of the princess. There was interest, interrogation, perhaps something more, in the seriously beautiful eyes of Olga. She was unattended for the moment.
Like a sleep-walker, or a mesmeric subject, Fenton moved across the floor, staring straight ahead and letting the dancers dodge him as they might. He found himself standing before her and bowed with worshipping deference.
"His highness, the Prince Peter, is quite safe," he said in a low tone. "I knew you would want to know. I found Varden and he is setting out at once to give your father warning."
The princess thanked him. Fenton, glancing at her earnestly, was aware that her attitude had subtly changed. He made a bold decision on the instant.
"You said not so long ago," the words came rapidly, "that you would like an opportunity to get away from the restrictions of royalty and be—just one of the people for a time. Will you place yourself in that position for just a few minutes now? I have something to say to you. Will you permit me to speak, not as Donald Fenton, to Olga, princess of the royal house of Ironia, but as one man to one woman?"
The princess did not answer, but she did not glance away, and Fenton read in her eyes interest, expectancy, perhaps even a little fear. The experience of talking freely to a stranger, a young man, was distinctly a new one for her, but hardly one that could be entered upon without trepidation. To step from the well-ordered path of royalty, where nothing happened but what has been laid down by, tradition, was like a plunge into unplumbed depths. Suppose she found herself just a woman after all, and capable of falling in love with young men who were tall and straight with direct blue eyes and cleft chins?