To the perfunctory plaudits of the citizens of Demia he made no response.

Ivan Kantchi, who sat just in front of him, kicked his royal foot and made a surreptitious gesture toward his helmet. The crown prince snatched off his own headgear and waved it frantically at the cheering populace. Ivan Kantchi bit his lip, and a slow flush crept up from beneath his military collar. Prince Stroebel became acutely interested in something straight ahead of him. Alexander Palensk, sitting beside Ivan, gave the latter an almost imperceptible nudge with his elbow. The people packing either side of the avenue gazed wide eyed at the crown prince of Karlova for a moment; then they broke into loud and tumultuous laughter.

Prince Boris glanced nervously to right and left. He saw the strained expressions upon the faces of his companions, he sensed the jeers in the laughter of the people of Demia. Then he lost his temper, jamming his helmet down upon his, head, the eagles of The Black Guard to the rear instead of in front, he rose to his feet, and shaking his fists at the Margothians unloosed a stream of profane invective upon them.

A young. American, standing upon a balcony of Demia's principal hotel, witnessed the outbreak.

"The future husband of your princess appears to have a little temper of his own," he commented, grinning, to a chance acquaintance at his side. The latter, a very tall young man, broad shouldered and with an unmistakably military bearing, smiled.

"He doesn't seem to be making a very good impression, does he?" he asked. "But you are mistaken, M. Main, in thinking me a Margothian. I am not just a chance visitor to Demia, like yourself."

"Well," said Hemmington Main, "I hope that whatever your business here may be that you are more successful than I have been. One disappointment after another has been my lot since I first reached Europe, and now I have entirely lost track of those I am seeking. They should have arrived in Demia three days since, and I can only account for their absence on the hypothesis that-ahem-one of them discovered that I was following them and has altered their route in order to elude me."

"You are an American detective?" asked the stranger.

Main laughed. "Far from it," he replied; "though I have often thought, until recently, that I was a natural born sleuth; and now to lose two women and a chauffeur, to say nothing of two maids and an automobile, in the heart of Europe is a severe blow to my egotism."

"My dear fellow," exclaimed the stranger; "can it be that be that you are trailing a convent?"

"I'm trailing the dearest girl in the world," replied Main.

The other raised his eyebrows in partial understanding.

"Ah," he said; "a love affair-romance-adventure! My dear M. Main, I think that you are a man after my own heart, with this slight difference-you are seeking to find a love, I to elude one. Possibly we might join forces, eh?"

"How?

"I do not know-we must leave that to fate; and while fate is mustering her forces let us find a table here on the balcony and investigate again that incomparable 'bronx' which you taught the bar boy to concoct before we were interrupted by the coming of His Royal Highness, Prince Boris of Karlova."

"You're on," cried Hemmington Main. "His royal nibs has passed. The troops are going. Hoi polloi are dispersing. The circus parade is over-now for red lemonade and peanuts."

"You Americans don't entertain a great deal of respect for royalty," commented the stranger, with a good natured laugh.

"Oh, but we do," replied Main. "We deride the gods even while we tremble at their feet. We poke fun at kings, for whose lightest favor we would barter our souls. We are a strange race, monsieur. Europeans do not know us; nor is it strange, for, as a matter of fact, we do not know ourselves."

The two men had seated themselves at a small table near the balustrade, overlooking the avenue beneath. Traffic was once more assuming its normal condition, though many pedestrians still lingered in idle gossip upon the narrow walks. An automobile, a large touring car, honked noisily out of a side street and crossed toward the hotel entrance. Main chanced to be looking down into the street at the time. With an excited exclamation he half rose from his chair.

"There they are!" he whispered.