“I will take no refusal,” she said decisively. “I will talk to Lord Barmouth to-night before I leave. Me never refuses me anything. Besides, in two hours you can always be at the Embassy. You will remember, the last time you were my guest, how easy you found the journey to and from Paris. Why, you often used to leave in the morning and return at night. No, you cannot refuse.”
“I must consult His Excellency before accepting,” I replied. “In the meantime, Princess, I thank you for your kind invitation.”
“Princess?” she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows. “Why not Léonie? I was Léonie to you always in the days gone by. Is there any reason why you should be so distant now? Unless—” and she paused.
“Unless what?” I inquired, looking at her swiftly.
“Unless you have a really serious affair of the heart,” she said.
“I have none,” I answered promptly, suppressing a sigh with difficulty.
“Then do not use my title. I hate my friends to call me Princess. Recollect that to you I am always Léonie.”
“Very well,” I laughed, for she was full of quaint caprice.
I had pleasant recollections of my last visit to the château, and hoped that if the theft of the instructions contained in the despatch I had brought from London produced no serious international complication, I should obtain leave to join her house-party, which was certain to be a smart and merry one.
She told me the names of some she had invited. Among those known to me were the Baroness de Chalencon, Count de Hindenburg, the German Ambassador, and his wife, and Count de Wolkenstein, Austrian Ambassador, as well as several other men and women of the smartest set in Paris.