foreign yacht
owners at the recent regatta."

Gerhardt, redder than ever, was still German enough to swallow the
meaningless insolence. He was not getting on very well at the Embassy
of his fellow countrymen. Americans, properly presented, they endured
without too open resentment; for German-Americans, even when
millionaires, their contempt and bad manners were often undisguised.

"I'm going to get out of this," growled Gerhardt, who held a good
position socially in New York and in the fashionable colony at
Northbrook. "I've seen enough puffed up Germans and over-embroidered
Turks to last me. Come on, d'Eblis----"

Ferez detained them both:

"Surely," he protested, "you would not miss Nihla!"

"Nihla?" repeated d'Eblis, who had passed his arm through Gerhardt's.
"Is that the girl who set St. Petersburg by the ears?"

"Nihla Quellen," rumbled Gerhardt. "I've heard of her. She's a dancer,
isn't she?"

Ferez, of course, knew all about her, and he drew the two men into the
embrasure of a long window.

It was not happening just exactly as he and the German Ambassador had
planned it together; they had intended to let Nihla burst like a
flaming jewel on the vision of d'Eblis and blind him then and there.

Perhaps, after all, it was better drama to prepare her entrance. And
who but Ferez was qualified to prepare that entree, or to speak with
authority concerning the history of this strange and beautiful young
girl who had suddenly appeared like a burning star in the East, had
passed like a meteor through St. Petersburg, leaving several
susceptible young men--notably the Grand Duke Cyril--mentally unhinged
and hopelessly dissatisfied with fate.

"It is ver' fonny, d'Eblis--une histoire chic, vous savez! Figurez
vous----"

"Talk English," growled Gerhardt, eyeing the serene progress of a
pretty Highness, Austrian, of course, surrounded by gorgeous uniforms
and empressement.

"Who's that?" he added.

Ferez turned; the gorgeous lady snubbed him, but bowed to d'Eblis.

"The Archduchess Zilka," he said, not a whit abashed. "She is a ver'
great frien' of mine."

"Can't you present me?" enquired Gerhardt, restlessly; "--or you,
d'Eblis--can't you ask permission?"

The Count d'Eblis nodded inattentively, then turned his heavy and
rather vulgar face to Ferez, plainly interested in the "histoire" of
the girl, Nihla.

"What were you going to say about that dancer?" he demanded.

Ferez pretended to forget, then, app