ck fruit.

It was the Crown Prince who saw Bobby first.

He was standing on a bench, peering over the shoulders of the crowd.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto saw him, and bent forward. "There he is!"
he said, in a tense tone. "There on the--"

"Sit up straight," commanded Miss Braithwaite.

"May I just wave once? I--"

"Otto!" said Miss Braithwaite, in a terrible voice.

But a dreadful thing was happening. Bobby was looking directly at him,
and making no sign. His mouth was a trifle open, but that was all. Otto
had a momentary glimpse of him, of the small cap set far back, of the
white sweater, of two coolly critical eyes. Then the crowd closed up,
and the carriage moved on.

Prince Ferdinand William Otto sat back in his seat, very pale. Clearly
Bobby was through with him. First Nikky had forgotten him, and now the
American boy had learned his unfortunate position as one of the detested
order, and would have none of him.

"You see," said Miss Braithwaite, with an air of relief, "he did not
know you."

Up on the box the man beside Beppo kept his hand on the revolver. The
carriage turned back toward the Palace.

Late that afternoon the Chancellor had a visitor. Old Mathilde, his
servant and housekeeper, showed some curiosity but little excitement
over it. 'She was, in fact, faintly resentful. The Chancellor had eaten
little all day, and now, when she had an omelet ready to turn smoking
out of the pan, must come the Princess Hedwig on foot like the common
people, and demand to see him.

Mathilde admitted her, and surveyed her uncompromisingly. Royalties were
quite as much in her line as they were in the Crown Prince's.

"He is about to have supper, Highness."

"Please, Mathilde," begged Hedwig. "It is very important."

Mathilde sighed. "As Your Highness wishes," she agreed, and went
grumblingly back to the study overlooking the walled garden.

"You may bring his supper when it is ready," Hedwig called to her.

Mathilde was mollified, but she knew what was fitting, if the Princess
did not. The omelet spoiled in the pan.

The Chancellor was in his old smoking-coat and slippers. He made an
effort to don his tunic, but Hedwig, on Mathilde's heels, caught him
in the act. And, after a glance at her face, he relinquished the idea,
bowed over her hand, and drew up a chair for her.

And that was how the Chancellor of the kingdom learned that Captain
Larisch, aide-de-camp to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, h