"Then it's settled," said Fenton. Nothing had been said, but both knew that it was agreed he should proceed on the suggested basis. "I'm going to talk to you as a man in Canada would talk to a girl he was interested in; only more so, because I'm going to give you advice—something that even a Canadian might hesitate to do the first time he had met a girl. I've heard about Miridoff and—well, the rest of it. All I want to say is, don't give in to them! Don't allow any patriotic impulse to gain your consent to this monstrous match. The man is a rogue, a would-be murderer. Perhaps back in the Middle Ages it was considered proper for beautiful girls to marry men of his stamp, but this is the year 1915. If you could only see this thing from the new-world angle! Over there, not only is every man his own master, but every woman her own mistress."
Pausing a moment for breath, he hurried on: "A most extraordinary thing I'm doing, isn't it? Standing up and lecturing you, and on whom you should or should not marry, of all subjects! But I'm going to do a still more extraordinary thing. Remember, I'm talking as a man to a woman, and you for the moment are just Olga to me, not Princess Olga. If a man meets a woman and knows her for the one he was destined to love, and if he fears it may never be his great good fortune to see her again, why—he tells her of his love!"
He stopped, for over the face of his companion had come an expression of mingled confusion and sadness. As the dying sun catches the fleeting clouds and incarnadines them with a riot of red which spreads and deepens and then slowly fades away, so the lovely face of the princess became suffused with blushes.
"I fear we must return to the more conventional basis, Mr Fenton," she said hurriedly. "Perhaps what Olga might learn would serve to disturb the peace of mind of Princess Olga—afterward. Please do not say any more!"
"As you wish." Fenton felt vaguely troubled. "You know what I desired to say. That is sufficient. If I can ever be of assistance to you, command me. Perhaps," and he stood up very straight at the thought, "you may some day desire to step out of the mediæval ages into the twentieth century, to live the free life that the women of the west enjoy. If circumstances ever change so that you can order your own future without obeying the dictates of kings and meddling statesmen—if it ever comes to that, you belong to me! I love you; I loved you the first moment I saw you. If you could remain just plain Olga long enough you would come to love me too. I am so confident of it that, when you slip back into your high station again, it is going to be a great comfort to me that I could have won you if a king's whim and a foolish custom had not stood in the way. And, do you know, I almost feel that soon you will become very tired of being just Princess Olga and long for the right to be Olga—a woman with a will of her own and the right to place her love where she wills. Until that time—good-bye, Olga."
For a moment they looked deep into each other's eyes, and Fenton read a message that gave him comfort, if not hope. Then he bowed very low.
"Your highness, I wish you good night."
CHAPTER IV
THE MEETING OF FOUR NATIONS
From the glare and glitter of the ball-room they stepped out to wait for their car—Varden and his wife and Fenton. The Baroness Draschol was a very charming woman of a striking Latin type. Varden, a strong man among men, was quite content to play second fiddle in the matrimonial partnership he had formed with this beautiful young Ironian. He fairly idolised her, and with every moment spent in her society Fenton understood more fully why. She was plump, merry, with flashing brown eyes that soon brought everything within their range into thraldom, and a voice trained to charm by that greatest of elocutionary teachers, Nature. She alternately petted her English husband and drove him to raging jealousy by keeping a flock of Ironian dandies in her train. The Baroness had paid Fenton the high compliment of not attempting to flirt with him, recognising intuitively perhaps that Cupid, the universal booking agent, had billed this blond young giant for another engagement; certainly recognising, for she was a shrewd young person and also very much in love with her husband, that no matter who else she may lay herself out to captivate, it is never wise for a wife to flirt with her husband's friends. Husbands do not like it. Accordingly she had welcomed Fenton as a friend, and they were already "as thick as thieves," as Varden put it.