They were silent a moment, during which Drexel bowed to a woman sitting at a near-by table; and he gave an inward start as he saw the tall, well-dressed man with a swart Mephistophelian handsomeness, who sat at table with her. It was Freeman, the terrorist.
Mr. Howard’s sharp eyes had followed his nephew’s glance. “Say, but she’s a stunner!” he ejaculated.
And she was—a superb compromise between blond and brunette, in the first fulness of womanhood, with the ease and grace and rather confident smile of the acknowledged beauty, and gowned in a green robe that had all the richness and distinction that the Parisian modistes of French St. Petersburg could give it.
“Who is she?” Mr. Howard asked.
“Countess Baronova. She’s a widow. Her husband was killed in the Japanese war.”
Mr. Howard looked the young man straight in the face. “Bevare o’ vidders, my boy,” he said solemnly.
“Needn’t worry—nothing doing there,” Drexel returned; but he did not see fit to add that it was not from lack of encouragement from the widow.
“Yes, sir, a stunner!” his uncle repeated. “And now, tell me, Henry—what do you think of our prince?”
“You have not seen him yet?”
“No. He had an audience with the Czar to-day, Alice told me. How do you size him up?”