"It will not suffice," said I. "All doubt must be removed. She must admit her—error."
He raised his eyebrows, and out came the cigarette case.
"Then, do you appreciate that, until she does, you will have the disagreeable duty of preventing her from departing the Capital—certainly the Kingdom?"
"Practically that," I admitted. "I have already directed that she be not permitted to leave Dornlitz."
He shook his head. "There, you send me over to the Enemy. If she appeal to the Embassy I may not suffer her to be restrained. She is an American subject."
"Not at all," said I. "If she be my wife, she is a subject of His Majesty, Frederick the Third."
"Come, Major, that's not half bad," he laughed. "And I'll stand on it, too. So long as the lady claims to be the wife of a Grand Duke of Valeria, the American Ambassador will absolutely decline to interfere in her behalf."
"She may get powerfully tired of having me for a husband," I observed.
He studied the smoke-rings a bit.
"I wonder just how far it would be well for you to play the husband?" he mused.