ut it, I 'll marry her. And--and--" he clutched at his throat,
"you have heard me. I have spoken. I say no more." And he slammed
out of the room.

CHAPTER XXI

PLAIN SAILOR TALK

Miss Hatch had some inkling of the Prince's intention when she ushered
him into the Wellington study, and as she met Sara in the hall on the
way out of the library, she held a gloomy countenance.

"Mrs. Van Valkenberg," she said in response to Sara's bright smile of
greeting, "please don't think me impertinent, but--will you, if
possible, see that the Prince is not alone with Miss Wellington to-day?
And--cannot you prod that terribly sluggish McCall?"

Sara looked at the young woman wonderingly for a minute and then held
out her hand, laughing.

"Miss Hatch, you 're a jewel."

Sara found Jack near the garage. But she did not have much success
with him. He was grumpy and, replying to Sara's assertion that the
situation was rapidly becoming rife with disagreeable possibilities, he
replied that he did not care a very little bit, and that Anne could
marry all the princes in Christendom for all he cared. So Sara,
flushing with impatience, told him he was an idiot and that she would
like to shake him. The only satisfaction she derived from the incident
was that Anne, who came upon them as they were parting, was grumpy,
too. Synchronous moods in the two persons whose interests she held so
closely to heart was a symptom, she told herself, that gave warrant for
hope.

Rimini had turned up with the new car and in it Anne, Sara, Koltsoff,
and Robert Marie went to the Casino. Mrs. Wellington drove to market
in her carriage. Mr. Wellington remained in his study and among other
things had Buffalo on the telephone for half an hour. Armitage spent
the morning with the boys and showed them several shifty boxing and
wrestling tricks which won Ronald to him quite as effectually as the
jiu-jitsu grip had won his younger brother the preceding day.

At luncheon, Anne's peevish mood had not diminished, which, to Sara,
would have been a source of joy had she not feared that it was due to
the fact that Koltsoff had not been good company all the morning. He
was, in truth, quite at his wits' end to account for the behavior of
Yeasky, who had been instructed to get into communication with him by
ten o'clock, and had failed to do so. Thus Koltsoff, even when with
Anne, had been preoccupied and in need of a great deal of entertaining.

Armit