"It will not suffice," said I. "All doubt must be removed. She must
admit her--error."
He raised his eyebrows, and out came the cigarette case.
"Then, do you appreciate that, until she does, you will have the
disagreeable duty of preventing her from departing the Capital--certainly
the Kingdom?"
"Practically that," I admitted. "I have already directed that she be not
permitted to leave Dornlitz."
He shook his head. "There, you send me over to the Enemy. If she appeal
to the Embassy I may not suffer her to be restrained. She is an American
subject."
"Not at all," said I. "If she be my wife, she is a subject of His
Majesty, Frederick the Third."
"Come, Major, that's not half bad," he laughed. "And I'll stand on it,
too. So long as the lady claims to be the wife of a Grand Duke of
Valeria, the American Ambassador will absolutely decline to interfere in
her behalf."
"She may get powerfully tired of having me for a husband," I observed.
He studied the smoke-rings a bit.
"I wonder just how far it would be well for you to play the husband?" he
mused.
"What's that?" I almost shouted.
"I mean, how far would she be willing to go in this wife business?"
"God knows--but the whole way, I fancy."
"Would it be worth while to bluff her by pretending to acknowledge her
claim and, then, inviting her to take her place at the head of your
establishment?"
"Acknowledge her! Not for the millionth of a second."
"Oh, I mean only before witnesses who understood the scheme."
"You don't know the lady, Courtney," I answered. "She would call the
bluff instantly--and do it so well the witnesses, themselves, would be
deceived and turned against me."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Lotzen seems to be uncommonly lucky in his
leading woman," he observed.
"The Devil usually helps his own," said I.
Then, I hastened to the Palace.