"If Your Highness will permit, Madam, my wife, will call on you and be at your disposal at any time, as also my daughters. Since you have no maid with you, Madame Helda," His Excellency called the raw-boned woman from the next room as he spoke, "will wait upon you. Everything to make your stay pleasant and comfortable has been arranged. But you are an important personage and if we are firm, Your Highness, it is not because we wish to be, but only because of duty to your country, and to yourself. If you decide, at any time, that you should like to see America, you have only to summon me. Your Highness will permit me to retire?"
"Certainly, Your Excellency, and thank you."
With a profound bow His Excellency left the room. Ruth examined her apartments with a pleased smile of gratification--for they looked anything but a prison. The Minister knew how to make rooms pleasant.
The diplomat went slowly downstairs. He had lost his smile, and his face was contracted with worry. The girl's story had impressed him more than he had cared to own, and there was much of the human in him, in spite of the diplomat's veneer. Then the name "Atheson" sounded insistently in his ears and, momentarily, he felt that he was almost grasping the clue as he strove to remember.
As he entered the library, his secretary stood up, a yellow paper in his hands.
"I have been waiting to hand this to you personally, Excellency."
The Minister took the paper. It was a cablegram translated from code, which read: "The Duke is dead. If Her Highness has arrived do everything possible to bring her to understand that there must be no scandal. Be absolutely firm and have her return at any risk without delay. The Caspian has been dispatched from the coast of France and should arrive in ten days. We have given out that the Duchess is traveling incognito, but has been notified to return."
The worry on the Minister's face deepened.
"This complicates matters, Wratslav," he said, "and makes it more imperative that Her Highness be kept most strictly secluded. Go to bed now. We shall have enough to keep us awake for the next ten days."
Wratslav left, but the Minister sat down at his desk. Morning found him there asleep.