scertain if the drawer had been tampered with: the man kept between her
and it all the time, still smiling, still polite, but watching every
movement that she made. Suddenly he took his watch from his pocket.

"Two o'clock! Already! Princess, you will be vexed with me for having
abused your hospitality to such an extent. I must go!" He appeared not
to notice the sigh of relief that broke from her, but went on in a
melodramatic tone. "I shall take my departure, not through the window
like a lover, nor up the chimney like a thief, nor yet through a secret
door behind the arras like a brigand of romance, but like a gentleman
who has come to pay his tribute of homage and respect to the most
enchanting woman in the world--through the door!" He made a movement as
if to go, and came back. "And what do you think of doing now, Princess?
Perhaps you will be angry with me? Possibly some unpleasant discovery,
made after my departure, will raise some animosity in your breast
against me? You might even ring, directly my back is turned, and alarm
the staff, merely to embarrass me in my exit, and without paying any
attention to the subsequent possible scandal. That is a complicated
arrangement of bells and telephones beside your bed! It would be a pity
to spoil such a pretty thing, and besides, I hate doing unnecessary
damage!" The Princess's eyes turned once more to the drawer: it was
practically certain that her money was not there now! But the man broke
in again upon her thoughts. "What can I be thinking of? Just fancy my
not having presented myself to you even yet! But as a matter of fact I
do not want to tell you my name out loud: it is a romantic one, utterly
out of keeping with the typically modern environment in which we are
now. Ah, if we were only on the steep side of some mountain with the
moon like a great lamp above us, or by the shore of some wild ocean,
there would be some fascination in the proclamation of my identity in
the silence of the night, or in the midst of lightning and thunder as
the hurricane swept the seas! But here--in a third-floor suite of the
Royal Palace Hotel, surrounded by telephones and electric light, and
standing by a window overlooking the Champs Elysees--it would be a
positive anachronism!" He took a card out of his pocket and drew near
the little escritoire. "Allow me, Princess, to slip my card into this
drawer, left open on purpose, it would seem," and while the Princess
uttered an exclamation s