Richie! without a doubt there is a hand directing our destiny.' His
speaking in such a strain, out of pure kindness to Temple, huskily, with
his painful attempt to talk like himself, revived his image as the father
of my heart and dreams, and stirred my torpid affection, though it was
still torpid enough, as may be imagined, when I state that I remained
plunged in contemplation of his stocking of red silk emerging from the
full bronzed breech, considering whether his comparison of himself to a
shell-fish might not be a really just one. We neither of us regained our
true natures until he was free of every vestige of the garb of Prince
Albrecht Wohlgemuth. Attendants were awaiting him at the garden-gate of
a beautiful villa partly girdled by rising fir-woods on its footing of
bright green meadow. They led him away, and us to bath-rooms.




CHAPTER XVIII

WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION

In a long saloon ornamented with stags' horns and instruments of the
chase, tusks of boars, spear-staves, boarknives, and silver horns, my
father, I, and Temple sat down to a memorable breakfast, my father in his
true form, dressed in black silken jacket and knee-breeches, purple-
stockings and pumps; without a wig, I thanked heaven to see. How
blithely he flung out his limbs and heaved his chest released from
confinement! His face was stained brownish, but we drank old Rhine wine,
and had no eye for appearances.

'So you could bear it no longer, Richie?' My father interrupted the