Prince. "Perhaps, Countess, if you would wait a little time--a week
or ten days, I might--"

"But we're going day after to-morrow, aren't we, Kittie?" quickly broke
in Miss Destrey.

"I suppose so," replied Mrs. Kidder, who invariably frowned when
addressed as "Cousin Kathryn," and brightened faintly if spontaneously
Kittied. "We've been here more than a week, and seen all the Nice and
Monte Carlo sights, thanks to the Prince. There's nothing to keep us,
although it will be about all we can do to get off so soon."

"Why be hurried, Countess?" with a shrug of the shoulder half-turned
from me.

"Well, I don't know." Her eyes wandered to mine. "But it suits Sir Ralph
to leave then. I guess we can manage it."

"Where will you go?" inquired Dalmar-Kalm. "I might be able to join you
somewhere _en route_."

"Well, that's one of the things we haven't quite settled yet," replied
Mrs. Kidder. "Almost anywhere will suit me. We can just potter around.
It's the automobiling we want. You know, this is our first time in
Europe, and so long as we're in pretty places, it's much the same to
us."

"Speak for yourself, Mamma," said Beechy. "Maida and I want to see the
Lake of Como, where Claude Melnotte had his palace."

"Oh, my, yes! In 'the Lady of Lyons.' I do think that's a perfectly
sweet play. Could we go there, Sir Ralph?"

"I must consult my chauffeur," said I, cautiously. "He knows more about
geography than I do. He ought to; he spends enough money on road-maps to
keep a wife. Eh, Terry?"

"There are two ways of driving to the lakes from here," he said, with a
confidence which pleased me. "One can go coasting along the Italian
Riviera to Genoa, and so direct to Milan; or one can go through the
Roya Valley, either by Turin, or a short cut which brings one eventually
to Milan."

"Milan!" exclaimed Miss Destrey, with a rapt look. "Why, that's not very
far from Verona, is it? And if it's not far from Verona, it can't be so
far from Venice. Oh, Beechy, think of seeing Venice!"

"It would be easy to go there," Terry said, showing too much eagerness
to fall in with a whim of the poor relation's; at least such was my
opinion until, with a glint of mischief in his eyes, he added, "If we
went to Venice, Countess, it would be very easy to run on if you liked,
into Dalmatia and see the new estate which you told us you thought of
buying, before you actually made up your mind to have it."

It was all I could do to strangle a ch