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He was manifestly delighted.

“I cannot tell you what pleasure your decision gives me. We shall now circumvent him completely. This is Boreski,” and he handed me a photograph.

The man was certainly handsome and distinguished-looking. Dark as a raven, with large, deep-set, thoughtful eyes under straight brows, a broad ample forehead, straight nose, very shapely mouth with curved mobile lips, and a narrowing chin.

“A handsome fellow, and that’s the truth,” I said.

“So the Duchess thinks,” he returned drily, handing me her portrait.

“You said she was twenty years his senior. This is a young woman.”

“It was taken last year: a Court photograph,” and he smiled. “She’s all but fifty.”

“Love at fifty may be a very serious passion, Prince. Have you no scruples about blighting it? She might take it badly and pine away.”

“She might do much worse, monsieur, and marry that rascal.”

“Her fortune is her own, I presume?”

“She would forfeit much of it if she married without the Emperor’s consent. Boreski knows that well enough, and trades on it. I do not think we shall find him a really strong man. He has the whip hand of us for the moment through those stolen documents; but when we once get those, we shall be able to frighten him, I am convinced.”