thirty-five knots an
hour, with properly trained servants to attend to you, and, as the
advertisements say, 'every possible comfort and convenience.'"

"Which, of course, means that you have got your yacht here, and are so
very kind as to ask us to become your guests for a time," said the
Professor, with a suspicion of stiffness. "It is more than generous of
you, Prince, but really----"

"But really, my dear sir," Oscarovitch interrupted, with a gesture of
deprecation, "I can assure you that, so far as I am concerned, there is
no kindness, to say nothing of generosity. It is pure selfishness. This
is my position. I have managed to escape for a time from the toils of
official work and worry, and the almost equally irksome bonds of that
form of penal servitude which is called Society. Like you, I have fled
overseas, but, unlike you, I have no company but my own, and I have had
a great deal too much of that already, though I have only been three
days and nights at sea. I have no plans, I have got nothing to do and
nowhere to go; and so, if you and Miss Marmion would take pity on my
loneliness all the generosity would be on your side. Of course, I cannot
presume to ask you to change your plans all at once, but if you will
sleep on my proposition and come and lunch with me to-morrow on board
the _Grashna_ and take a run up the Sound, say, to Elsinore, you may be
able to come to a decision."

It was a lovely night, and so they took their coffee and liqueurs, and
the two men their smokes on the balcony overlooking the Oestergade,
which might be called the Rue de la Paix of Copenhagen, and watched the
well-dressed crowds sauntering to and fro past the brilliantly lighted
shops; and Nitocris, who seemed to her father to be in singularly high
spirits, sent the conversation rippling over all manner of subjects with
the exception of politics and the Fourth Dimension. Oscarovitch was
becoming more and more fascinated as the light-winged minutes sped by,
and he took but little pains to conceal the fact. Nitocris, of course,
saw this, and simulated a delightful unconsciousness. The Professor was,
for the time being, completely mystified. He knew that his daughter
hated the Prince with a thorough cordiality, and yet he had never seen
her make herself so entirely charming to any man, not even excepting
Merrill himself, as she was to this man, her enemy of the Ages. He could
have solved the problem instantly by crossing the Border, bu