Have seen neither for eight years, and scarcely know them.
But Lady M. tall brown old party with nose like hobbyhorse. Helen
dark, nose like mother's, wears glasses."

With no betrayal of feeling, Leopold laid the telegram on the red
plush seat, and unfolded the other.

"Pardon delay," the Rhaetian ambassador's message began. "Have been
making inquiries. Lady Mowbray has been widow for ten years. Not rich.
During son's minority has let her town and country houses, lives much
abroad. Very high church, intellectual, at present in Calcutta, where
her daughter Helen, twenty-eight, not pretty, is lately engaged to
marry middle-aged Judge of some distinction."

"So!" And the Emperor threw aside the second bit of paper. "It is on
such slight grounds as these that a man of the world can label two
ladies 'adventuresses'!"

The Chancellor was bitterly disappointed. He had counted on the
impression which these telegrams must make, and unless Leopold were
acting, it was now certain that love had driven him out of his senses.

But if the Emperor were mad, he must be treated accordingly, and the
old statesman condescended to "bluff."

"There is still more to tell," he said, "if your Majesty has not heard
enough. But I think when you have reflected you will not wish for
more. It is clear that the women calling themselves Mowbrays have had
the audacity to present themselves here under false colors. They have
either deceived Lady Lambert, who introduced them to Rhaetian society,
or--still more likely--they have cleverly forged their letters of
introduction."

"Why didn't you telegraph to Lady Lambert, while your hand was in?"
sneered Leopold.

"I did, your Majesty, or rather, not knowing her present address I
wired a friend of mine, an acquaintance of hers, begging him to make
inquiries, without using my name. But I have not yet received an
answer to that telegram."

"Until you do, I should think that even a cynic like yourself might
give two defenseless, inoffensive ladies the benefit of the doubt."

"Inoffensive?" echoed von Breitstein. "Inoffensive, when they came to
this country to ensnare your Majesty through the girl's beauty? But,
great Heaven, it is true that I am growing old! I have forgotten to
ask your Majesty whether you have gone so far as to mention the word
marriage to Miss Mowbray?"

"I'll answer that question by another. Do you really believe that
Miss Mowbray came to Rhaetia to 'entrap' me?"

"I do. Tho