en away for some months. You have not seen much of
her, perhaps, since her return?"

"Very little," he acquiesced. "She only arrived in London just before my
uncle's death, and since then I have had to spend some time at
Dorminster."

"As a matter of curiosity," Naida enquired, "when do you expect to see
her again?"

"This afternoon, I hope," he replied,--"directly I leave here, in fact."

"Then you will give her a little message for me, please?"

"With great pleasure!"

"Tell her from me--mind she understands this, if you please--that she
is not to leave England again until we have met."

"Is this a warning?" he asked.

She looked at him searchingly.

"I wonder," she reflected, "how much of you is Lord Dorminster's
nephew."

"And I, in my turn," he rejoined, with sudden boldness, "wonder how much
of you is Matinsky's envoy."

She began to laugh softly.

"We shall perhaps be friends, Lord Dorminster," she said. "I should like
to see more of you."

"You will permit me to call upon you," he begged eagerly.

"Will you come? We are at the Milan Court for a little time. My father
is trying to get a house. My sister is coming over to look after him. I
am unfortunately only a bird of passage."

"Then I shall not run the risk of missing you," he declared. "I shall
call very soon."

Immelan intervened,--grim, suspicious, a little disturbed. For some
reason or other, the meeting between these two young people seemed to
have made him uneasy.

"Your father has desired me to present his excuses to Lord Dorminster,"
he announced, "and to escort you back to the Milan. He has been
telephoned for from the Consulate."

Naida rose to her feet with some apparent reluctance.

"You will not delay your call too long, Lord Dorminster?" she enjoined,
as she gave him her hand. "I shall expect you the first afternoon you
are free."

"I shall not delay giving myself the pleasure," he assured her.

She nodded and made her adieux to the Prince. The two men stood together
and watched her depart with her companion.

"Really, one gains much through being an onlooker," the Prince
reflected. "There go the spirit of Russia and the spirit of Germany. You
dabble in these things, my friend Dorminster. Can you guess what they
are met for--for whom they wait?"

"I might guess," Nigel replied, "but I would rather be told."

"They wait for the master spirit," Karschoff declared, taking his arm.
"They wait for the great Prince Sha