CHAPTER III


AN ENCOUNTER

Mr. Heatherbloom, a few days later, sat one morning in Central Park. His
canine charges were tied to the bench and while they chafed at restraint
and tried vainly to get away and chase squirrels, he scrutinized one of
the pages of a newspaper some person had left there. What the young man
read seemed to give him no great pleasure. He put down the paper; then
picked it up again and regarded a snap-shot illustration occupying a
conspicuous position on the society page.

"Prince Boris Strogareff, riding in the park," the picture was labeled.
The newspaper photographer had caught for his sensational sheet an
excellent likeness of a foreign visitor in whom New York was at the time
greatly interested. A picturesque personality--the prince--half
distinguished gentleman, half bold brigand in appearance, was depicted
on a superb bay, and looked every inch a horseman. Mr. Heatherbloom
continued to stare at the likeness; the features, dark, rather
wild-looking, as if a trace of his ancient Tartar ancestry had survived
the cultivating touch of time. Then the young man on the bench once more
turned his attention to the text accompanying the cut.

"Reported engagement of Miss Elizabeth Dalrymple to Prince Boris
Strogareff ... the prince has vast estates in Russia and Russia-Asia ...
his forbears were prominent in the days when Crakow was building and the
Cossacks and the Poles were engaged in constant strife on the steppe ...