He made his way towards his hostess, arriving just in time to hear her farewell to Usk.
“Perhaps you will have something to tell me to-morrow, Usk. If so, look in about three o’clock. I shall be quite alone.”
“Nuts!” muttered the journalist. Then aloud to Mrs Sadleir he added, “Surely I saw our old friend Drakovics here just now?”
“Yes, he is here to-night,” said the hostess. “We don’t make a fuss about our foreign guests nowadays, and have receptions at Trentham House and public festivities for them, you see. They come and go quietly.”
“Still looking for a king, eh? He has come to England to try and get hold of the latest royal infant as a ruler for his one-horse State, hasn’t he?”
Clever woman though she was, Mrs Sadleir could occasionally be “drawn,” and this the ‘Chronograph’ man knew well. She smiled now significantly as she answered—
“No, I really don’t think he has designs on the Princess’s baby this time. What, must you go?”
Indeed he must, post-haste to the ‘Chronograph’ office, bearing news which set editor, foreign editor, sub-editor, and printer frantically to work altering and cutting and curtailing the copy already set up in such a way as to provide room for a column with startling headlines:—
“THE BALKAN QUESTION.
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE THRACIAN MONARCHY.
ROMANTIC CHOICE OF A KING.
CROWN OFFERED TO AN ENGLISH NOBLEMAN.
INTERVIEW WITH VISCOUNT USK, M.P.”
In justice to the journalist, it must be said that the account of the “interview” was very short, consisting chiefly of the true statement that Lord Usk had kept his own counsel and declined to discuss the subject; but the foreign editor and his subordinates supplied a concise account of Thracia and its history and revolution to fill up the space, and to gratify the interest and curiosity of the British public, which developed both these qualities very largely on the morrow.