The latter was a rising man in the profession. He was a powerful young officer, and, as we have intimated, very brave and ambitious.
"I've a strange story to tell you, Ike," he said.
"We are listeners."
"It is a very strange story."
"So you said, and repeating that fact is not opening up your story."
"Well, you see, in these prosaic days we seldom strike a romance just like the one I am about to relate. You remember a great wedding we had in New York about ten years ago?"
"I don't," answered Ike bluntly.
"Well, the daughter of a very rich man married a German nobleman, and a few years after their marriage they separated. She ran away from him. It is the old story: he and all his relatives felt themselves so much better than the young American girl. They insulted her in the grossest manner—and made her life miserable. She bore it for a long time, but being a full-blooded Yankee woman, beautiful and spirited, she determined to stand it no longer. Her father had been smart enough to secure all her fortune to herself during her life, and one bright morning she just dusted and left the count and his high-bred relatives to pay their own bills. She had done so for years and only received insults and snubs in return."
"It's the fate, I reckon, of most of these rich American girls who are marrying foreigners," suggested Ike.