CHAPTER XXX
MAN AND WIFE
Felix lost no time in seeking an interview with Prince Waldemar. He preferred to look for him in his own house than to meet him accidentally on 'change.
Waldemar did not keep him long waiting, neither did he treat him to any display of his superior rank. He received him in his study.
"Ah, your highness is occupied with business," said Felix, with the airy manner of an intimate friend; but he was secretly astonished to see that a man of the prince's high position was actually cutting the pages of the pamphlet before him, and underlining with red and blue pencil-marks the passages that pleased him most.
The prince laid down the pamphlet, and asked Felix to take a chair.
"I have only this moment heard," continued the banker, "that your excellency had arrived in Paris, and I hastened to be the first to pay my respects."
"Strange! At this very moment, I, too, was occupying myself with your affairs," returned the prince, with a peculiar smile, which Felix noted and thought he understood. He tried to put on a jaunty air as he made answer:
"I have come as an envoy under the protection of a flag of truce into the enemy's country."
The prince thought to himself, "The fellow's flag of truce is a handkerchief worked with the letter E."