"That," he said, "we won't discuss."
"Very well," Koltsoff's voice arose almost to a shriek. "But listen, I do love Anne Wellington and I think she loves me. And with dower or without it, I 'll marry her. And—and—" he clutched at his throat, "you have heard me. I have spoken. I say no more." And he slammed out of the room.
CHAPTER XXI
PLAIN SAILOR TALK
Miss Hatch had some inkling of the Prince's intention when she ushered him into the Wellington study, and as she met Sara in the hall on the way out of the library, she held a gloomy countenance.
"Mrs. Van Valkenberg," she said in response to Sara's bright smile of greeting, "please don't think me impertinent, but—will you, if possible, see that the Prince is not alone with Miss Wellington to-day? And—cannot you prod that terribly sluggish McCall?"
Sara looked at the young woman wonderingly for a minute and then held out her hand, laughing.
"Miss Hatch, you 're a jewel."
Sara found Jack near the garage. But she did not have much success with him. He was grumpy and, replying to Sara's assertion that the situation was rapidly becoming rife with disagreeable possibilities, he replied that he did not care a very little bit, and that Anne could marry all the princes in Christendom for all he cared. So Sara, flushing with impatience, told him he was an idiot and that she would like to shake him. The only satisfaction she derived from the incident was that Anne, who came upon them as they were parting, was grumpy, too. Synchronous moods in the two persons whose interests she held so closely to heart was a symptom, she told herself, that gave warrant for hope.