He was astonished at her coolness, her firmness of assertion, her
air of complete acquaintance with the world.

'Miss Racksole,' he said, 'if you will permit me to say it, I have
never in my life met a woman like you. May I rely on your
sympathy - your support?'

'My support, Prince? But how?'

'I do not know,' he replied. 'But you could help me if you would. A
woman, when she has brain, always has more brain than a man.'

'Ah!' she said ruefully, 'I have no brains, but I do believe I could
help you.'

What prompted her to make that assertion she could not have
explained, even to herself. But she made it, and she had a
suspicion - a prescience - that it would be justified, though by what
means, through what good fortune, was still a mystery to her.

'Go to Berlin,' she said. 'I see that you must do that; you have no
alternative. As for the rest, we shall see. Something will occur. I
shall be here. My father will be here. You must count us as your
friends.'

He kissed her hand when he left, and afterwards, when she was
alone, she kissed the spot his lips had touched again and again.
Now, thinking the matter out in the calmness of solitude, all
seemed strange, unreal, uncertain to her. Were conspiracies
actually possible nowadays? Did queer things actually happen in