His wife laughed at this characteristic speech and reaching out, patted his hand. He, in turn, seized and held her hand, quite covering it.
"Naturally, Ronald, I feel just as you do about having to purchase foreign titles. But it has pleased me to have the Prince here, in view of the fact that several others wanted him. It's akin to the satisfaction you feel, I imagine, when you suddenly appear before the public as owner of the controlling interest in a competitor's railroad."
"I understand," he replied, and gazed at his wife admiringly. "If I had been as good a railroad man as you are a social diplomat, I should be the only railroad man in the country." He laughed his hearty laugh and then glanced at her seriously. "Well, what about Anne?" he asked.
Mrs. Wellington was about to reply when her secretary entered.
"Prince Koltsoff is in the library waiting to pay his respects," said the young woman. "He seemed a little impatient and I told him I would tell you."
"Oh," said Mr. Wellington, as an expression of annoyance crossed his wife's face, "let him come right in."
As he towered over the Prince, seizing his hand with a grip that made the latter wince, Mrs. Wellington could not help noticing a veiled expression of contempt in the nobleman's face. She was aware that to him, her husband represented, of course, the highest plane of existence that Americans attain to, and she could see that the things in him, the things he stood for and had done, which would impress the average American or perhaps the Englishman, carried no appeal to this Russian. To him, she read, Ronald Wellington, in his great, bagging, ill-fitting clothes, was merely an embodiment of the American pig, whose only title to consideration was the daughter he had to give, and his only warrant of respect, his wealth.
"Sit down, Koltsoff," said her husband heartily, but studying him keenly from under his shaggy brows.
"Thank you," replied the Prince, seating himself luxuriously in a great leather chair. "As you must know, Mr. Wellington," he said, at the same time inclining his head toward Mrs. Wellington, "time presses for men in my sphere of life—the diplomatic; that is why I felt I must speak to you at once."
"Certainly," said Mr. Wellington, glancing at his wife, "fire away."