Highnesses--as he delighted to call them--were at that moment
"coming down the lift."

Carlton could hear their voices, and wished to step around the
corner and see them; it was for this chance he had been
waiting; but he could not afford to act in so undignified a
manner before Nolan, so he merely crossed his legs nervously,
and told the servant to go back to the rooms.

"Confound him!" he said; "I wish he would let me conduct my
own affairs in my own way. If I don't stop him, he'll carry
the Princess Aline off by force and send me word where he has
hidden her."

The Hohenwalds had evidently departed for a day's outing, as
up to five o'clock they had not returned; and Carlton, after
loitering all the afternoon, gave up waiting for them, and
went out to dine at Laurent's, in the Champs Elysees. He had
finished his dinner, and was leaning luxuriously forward, with
his elbows on the table, and knocking the cigar ashes into his
coffee-cup. He was pleasantly content. The trees hung heavy
with leaves over his head, a fountain played and overflowed at
his elbow, and the lamps of the fiacres passing and repassing
on the Avenue of the Champs Elysees shone like giant
fire-flies through the foliage. The touch of the gravel
beneath his feet emphasized the free, out-of-door charm of the
place, and the faces of the others around him looked more than
usually cheerful in the light of the candles flickering under
the clouded shades. His mind had gone back to his earlier
student days in Paris, when life always looked as it did now