hastened to announce before either of the others could speak. "I
have informed Canon and Mrs. Ebley of your disgraceful conduct and
that is sufficient. We shall discuss nothing further."

"I was not addressing you, sir," Count Roumovski returned mildly.
"My business with you terminated last night." And he turned his
shoulders to the irate junior chaplain and looked Canon Ebley
straight in the face. "I am here to ask for the hand of your
niece, Miss Rawson, as she is now free from other engagements, and
with her full consent I desire to make her my wife."

"Come, Erasmus," Mrs. Ebley said with icy dignity. "Let us go up
to our apartment and if this person annoys us further we can
complain to the manager of the hotel," then, with an annihilating
glance, she took her husband's arm and drew him toward the door.

"As you will, madame," and the Russian gentleman bowed with
respectful serenity. "It would have been more sensible to have
taken my request otherwise, but it is, after all, quite
immaterial. I will wish you a good-day," and he bowed again as
Canon Ebley and his outraged spouse sailed from the room--and,
with an exclamation of suppressed fury, Eustace Medlicott followed
in their wake.

Then Count Roumovski laughed softly to himself and, sitting down
at a writing-table, wrote a letter to his beloved. His whole plan
of life was simple and direct. He had done what he considered was
necessary in the affair, he had behaved with perfect openness and
honor in his demand, and if these people could not see the thing
from a common sense point of view, they were no longer to be