rence to the theme. In fact, I submitted
consciously to his masterful fluency and emotional power, and so I
was carried on the tide with him, remaining in London several days to
witness that I was not the only one. My father, admitting that money
served him in his conquest of society, and defying any other man to do
as much with it as he did, replied to a desperate insinuation of mine,
'This money I spend I am actually putting out to interest as much as,
or more than, your grandad.' He murmured confidentially, 'I have alarmed
the Government. Indeed, I have warrant for saying I am in communication
with its agents. They are bribing me; they are positively bribing me,
Richie. I receive my stipend annually. They are mighty discreet. So am
I. But I push them hard. I take what they offer: I renounce none of my
claims.'

Janet wrote that it would be prudent for me to return.

'I am prepared,' my father said. 'I have only to meet Mr. Beltham in a
room--I stipulate that it shall be between square walls--to win him.
The squire to back us, Richie, we have command of the entire world. His
wealth, and my good cause, and your illustrious union--by the way, it is
announced definitely in this morning's paper.'

Dismayed, I asked what was announced.

'Read,' said he. 'This will be something to hand to Mr. Beltham at our
meeting. I might trace it to one of the embassies, Imperial or Royal. No
matter--there it is.'

I read a paragraph in which Ottilia's name and titles were set down;
then followed mine and my wealthy heirship, and--woe was me in the
perusing of it!--a roundabout vindication of me as one not likely to be
ranked as the first of English commoners who had gained the hand of an
hereditary foreign princess, though it was undoubtedly in the light of
a commoner that I was most open to the congratulations of my countrymen
upon my unparalleled felicity. A display of historical erudition
cited the noble inferiors by birth who had caught princesses to their
arms--Charles, Humphrey, William, John. Under this list, a later Harry!

The paragraph closed by fixing the nuptials to take place before the end
of the Season.

I looked at my father to try a struggle with him. The whole man was
efflorescent.

'Can't it be stopped?' I implored him.

He signified the impossibility in a burst of gesticulations, motions
of the mouth, smiling frowns; various patterns of an absolute negative
beating down opposition.

'Things printed can n