spiritless. Her Royal Highness was seldom seen, save when she
drove through the streets. Persons who remembered the reign
before told what a mad, gay court it had been. Now it was
funereal. The youth and beauty of Bleiberg held a court of its
own. Royalty was not included, nor did it ask to be.

A strange capital, indeed, Maurice reflected, as he gazed down
into the cool, brown water. He regretted his caprice. There were
pretty women in Vienna. Some of them belonged to the American
colony. They danced well, they sang and played and rode. He had
taught some of them how to fence, and he could not remember the
times he had been "buttoned" while paying too much attention to
their lips and eyes. For Maurice loved a thing of beauty, were
it a woman, a horse or a Mediterranean sunset. What a difference
between these two years in Vienna and that year in Calcutta! He
never would forget the dingy office, with its tarnished sign, "U.
S. Consul," tacked insecurely on the door, and the utter
loneliness.

He cast a pebble into the lake, and watched the ripples roll
away and disappear, and ruminated on a life full of color and
vicissitude. He remembered the Arizona days, the endless burning
sand, the dull routine of a cavalry trooper, the lithe brown
bodies of the Apaches, the first skirmish and the last. From a
soldier he had turned journalist, tramped the streets of
Washington in rain and shine, living as a man lived who must.

One day his star had shot up from the nadir of obscurity, not
very far, but enough to bring his versatility under the notice
of the discerning Secretary of State, who, having been a friend