Lotzen shrugged his shoulders. “Just so,” he said. “Do you wonder I may not go to Paris?”
She went over to the fireplace, and sitting on the arm of a chair rested her slender feet on the fender, her silk clad ankles glistening in the fire-light.
“I don’t quite understand,” she said, “why, when the American was restored to Hugo’s rank, he did not, by that very fact, become also Heir Presumptive—his line is senior to yours.”
There was room on the chair arm for another and he took it.
“You have touched the very point,” he said. “Henry the Third himself restored Hugo and his heirs to rank and estate; but it needs Frederick’s decree to make him eligible to the Crown.”
“And has he made it?”
He shook his head. “I do not know——”
“But, surely, it would be promulgated, if he had.”
“Very probably; but not necessarily. All that is required is a line in the big book which for centuries has contained the Laws of the Dalbergs.”
She studied the tip of her shoe, tapping it the while on the fender rod.