! What shall we do meanwhile?" asked Joan innocently.

Felix winked brazenly at the picture. "Delgratz is a picturesque city,"
he said. "Let us inspect it."

"You do not think Alec will learn of our presence and visit us before
going to the University?"

"Very improbable. He is out in the country, watching artillery at field
exercise. Of course, he knows nothing about artillery; but Kings have to
pretend a good deal. Now, if I were a young lady who had been traveling
for a day and two nights, especially if I had slept badly during the
second night, I should stroll about the principal streets till I was
tired, eat a light luncheon, sleep for an hour afterward, dress myself
in some muslin confection, and be ready to dine with the King at
seven-thirty or thereabouts."

"I shall do nothing of the kind!" cried Joan, blushing behind her motor
veil.

"Very well. Behold in me your slave of the lamp. What shall we do?"

"I don't object to looking at the shops and the people for a little
while," she admitted, and this time Felix did not wink at the picture,
but contented himself with an expressive raising of his bushy eyebrows.

The program he mapped out was adhered to faithfully. Joan was really
tired, and the midday heat of Delgratz was not only novel but highly
disagreeable. She retired to her room at one o'clock, and Felix heard
her telling her maid to call her at three.

The elderly Frenchwoman whom Joan employed as a compendium of all the
domestic virtues was scandalized by the pestering she had already
undergone at the hands of the hotel employees. They wanted to know
everything about her mistress as soon as they were told that she was not
Poluski's wife, and the staid Pauline was at her wit's end to parry the
questions showered on her in bad French. Felix advised her not to
understand when spoken to, and relieved her manifest distress by the
statement that the hotel would see the last of them in a day or two.

Then, anxious himself to be rid of Pauline, he strolled out into Fuerst
Michaelstrasse, entered the hotel's public restaurant by another door,
and sat there, musing and alone.

Thus far, Joan and he had passed through the simple vicissitudes that
might beset any other strangers in the capital of Kosnovia. Though the
little man expected developments when Alec heard of Joan's presence, he
certainly did not look for squalls forthwith; yet he had not been
smoking and humming and sipping a cup of excellent cof