Gertrude’s interest in the intricacies of nautical science abated as soon as she found herself alone with her host in the chart room. They sat on cane chairs, and she swiftly brushed aside his explanation as to the problems suggested by the compass.

“My dear Grant,” she laughed, “I don’t care a bit how you set the course of your yacht or where you go to. What I should really like to know is why you don’t hold my hand?”

“I am placing a great restraint upon myself,” he assured her. “My captain is on the left-hand side of the bridge there, and my first officer on the right.”

“Why you have a room with all these silly little windows, I can’t imagine,” she complained. “I am feeling unusually gracious this afternoon. It was really very sweet of you to arrange this party and to let me bring Cornelius Blunn. He was most anxious to meet Lord Yeovil.”

“I wonder why?” Grant remarked. “He appears to hate politics and most serious matters.”

“He does, but he loves men,” she explained. “Men, and women, too, for that matter. A new type interests him. He has more friends than any man I ever met, and the number of his women acquaintances is scandalous.”

“He seems quite a simple person. I should never have believed that he was the Cornelius Blunn one reads so much about,—the great capitalist, the huge speculator, the man who controls the brains of so many great enterprises.”

“Mostly newspaper talk,” she observed carelessly. “He holds the majority of the shares in a great many of these companies by inheritance, but he takes no active part in their management. I wonder what Lord Yeovil thought of his suggestion that America ought to be asked again to join the Pact of Nations.”

Grant’s expression was one of bland indifference.

“I have no idea what Lord Yeovil’s own views on the matter may be,” he confessed. “We seldom talk politics. How does a man like your friend Blunn, now, get on with politicians, say of the type of Prince Lutrecht?”

“Well, they are entirely different,” she said thoughtfully. “Lutrecht is a born statesman. He comes from a stock of diplomatists. He would never have the broad views of Cornelius Blunn.”

“This matter of America, for instance?” Grant hazarded.

“How should I know anything about it,” she queried, a little impatiently, “and why do we waste time talking politics? You’re not nearly so nice as you were yesterday. Have you nothing more interesting to say?”

“And if I have, what would be the use?”

His tone seemed full of bitterness, his glance was certainly reproachful. She leaned towards him and took his hand boldly.

“Can’t I make up, just a little. Grant?” she whispered.

“Do you want to?” he demanded.

“I think so.”

“And then go back—to Berlin?”

“Who knows?” she sighed. “You yourself have had proof that I am a creature of impulse. When I feel strongly enough I have no will.”

There was a knock at the door. A steward brought in a message scribbled on a piece of paper. Grant glanced at it and nodded.

“We had better go down,” he said, turning to Gertrude. “The captain wants to consult me about the course. I have promised Lord Yeovil that he shall be back at ten o’clock. And I have an appointment myself later.”

“What sort of an appointment?” she asked a little jealously.

“Nothing of any moment,” he assured her.

They descended the steps, Grant pausing to speak for a few moments with the captain.

“I’m tired of all these people,” Gertrude declared abruptly. “Take me into your music room and I’ll play to you.”

He shook his head. Lymane was glowering at them from the rail, and Rose Lancaster was sitting alone.

“Alas!” he murmured. “You must remember that I am a host.”

“I shall flirt with Arthur Lymane,” she threatened.

“You’ve done that already,” he answered drily.

“Nonsense, I’ve only trifled with him,” she laughed. “He’s a nice boy but conceited. Walks in his master’s shadow and fancies himself a diplomatist. He is as some one once said of a war time Prime Minister,—full of small reticences and bubbling over with ingenuous disclosures.”

“How did you discover that?”

“When I talk to him I have to pretend to be interested in politics,” she replied evasively. “There is nothing else he can talk about.”

Susan cut out of the rubber and Rose Lancaster took her place. Grant crossed over and sank into a chair by the former’s side.

“Any luck?” he enquired.

“Thirty francs, thanks to Mr. Blunn. He’s a daring caller but he plays the cards wonderfully.”

“A most interesting character,” he remarked.

“Father seems to like him,” she agreed. “The only German he ever has liked.”

“And you?”

“I like him, too, or rather I think I do,” she replied, after a moment’s hesitation. “There are just odd moments when he gives me rather a quaint impression of insincerity. I dare say that’s fancy. Grant, you’re giving us a wonderful day.”

“I want it to be,” he answered. “It’s very nice to get you all here, and I fancy it must be rather a relief to your father to be right away for a few hours. No messages or cables possible. Hullo!”

He looked up at the masthead. Susan followed his example. There was a little crackling of blue fire there.

“I’m afraid I spoke too soon,” he pointed out. “The wireless is evidently working. I meant to have had it disconnected.”

Lord Yeovil, who was playing a hand, paused for a moment and looked up curiously.

“I should like to have been Prime Minister to Queen Elizabeth,” he grumbled. “One might have had a chance of a few hours’ holiday then.”

“Not you, Dad,” Susan exclaimed. “You’d have found making love to her all the time much more strenuous than law-making.”

“My knowledge of history is slight,” her father rejoined, “but I don’t fancy that Queen Elizabeth showed much amorous interest in elderly widowers.”

The Marconi operator presented a message to Lord Yeovil. He tore it open, nodded, and waited till the young man had retired. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he glanced across towards Gertrude, who was leaning against the rail, with Lymane by her side.

“My news is official,” he said, “but there is, I imagine, no secrecy about it. It will probably interest you, Princess.”

“Me!” Gertrude exclaimed, looking genuinely surprised.

“It is a cable from Berlin,” Lord Yeovil continued, “which Andrews has wirelessed on to me. ‘Baron Katina left this morning with cabled credentials to take Naga’s place here. I am informed that he is accompanied by Prince von Diss.’”

“Otto! My husband!” Gertrude cried.

Lord Yeovil assented.

“Is your husband, by any chance, a Japanese scholar, Princess?” he asked.

“He understands Japanese,” she replied. “He learnt it at Tokyo years ago. He has been over there once or twice since on missions.”

“That probably explains the matter,” Lord Yeovil pointed out. “Katina has the reputation of being a great diplomatist, but he has only just commenced the study of European languages. The Prince is probably coming with him as interpreter.”

Gertrude’s face was, for a moment, scarcely beautiful. She was looking across at Grant. Susan intercepted the glance and laughed, for h............