Chapter 06 - Taxable Income from Business Operations

Principles of Taxation for Business and

Investment Planning 16th Edition
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Chapter 06
Taxable Income from Business Operations

True / False Questions

1. For federal tax purposes, gross income from the sale of tangible goods is reduced by the
seller's cost of goods sold.
True False

2. Taxable income is defined as gross income minus allowable deductions and credits.
True False

6-1
Chapter 06 - Taxable Income from Business Operations

3. A taxpayer that wants to change its taxable year from a fiscal year to a calendar year is not
required to receive permission from the IRS to make the change.
True False

4. A firm's choice of taxable year is usually dictated by the annual operating cycle of the
firm's business.
True False

5. Rydel Inc. was incorporated on August 9 and elected to use a calendar year for tax
purposes. Rydel must annualize the income reported on its first tax return for the short period
from August 9 to December 31.
True False

6. A taxpayer that operates more than one business may use a different method of accounting
for each business.
True False

6-2
Chapter 06 - Taxable Income from Business Operations

7. PPQ Inc. wants to change from a hybrid method of accounting to the accrual method of
accounting for tax purposes. PPQ can't make this change without receiving permission from
the IRS.
True False

8. Taxpayers may adopt the cash receipts and disbursements method, the accrual method, or a
hybrid method of accounting for tax purposes.
True False

9. Accurate measurement of taxable income is the only objective of the federal income tax
laws.
True False

10. Federal and state political lobbying expenses are nondeductible.

True False

11. The after-tax cost of a dollar of meal and entertainment expense is 80 cents for a taxpayer
with a 40% marginal tax rate.
True False

12. Poole Services, a calendar year taxpayer, billed a client for $1,675 of services on
November 30, 2012, and received a check in full payment from the client on January 12,
2013. If Poole is a cash basis taxpayer, it reports $1,675 taxable income in 2012.
True False

13. Poole Company, a calendar year taxpayer, incurred $589 of long-distance telephone
charges in December 2012 and mailed a check to the telephone company on January 4, 2013.
If Poole is a cash basis taxpayer, it reports a $589 tax deduction in 2013.
True False

6-3
Chapter 06 - Taxable Income from Business Operations

14. Mr. Stern, a cash basis taxpayer, was notified by his bank that he earned $1,193 of interest
on his savings account in 2012. Mr. Stern has not withdrawn any funds from this account for
eight years and did not receive the notification until January 26, 2013. Mr. Stern does not
recognize the interest as income in 2012.
True False

15. A cash basis taxpayer must account for any prepayment of interest expense under the
accrual method.
True False

16. Elcox Company, a calendar year, cash basis taxpayer, paid $950 to purchase eight months'
worth of office supplies on December 12. Elcox can deduct $950 in the year of payment.
True False

17. Elcox Company, a calendar year, cash basis taxpayer, paid a $6,340 premium to purchase
a casualty insurance policy with a 36-month term. Elcox can deduct $6,340 in the year of
payment.
True False

18. Taxpayers that sell merchandise to their customers must use the accrual method to account
for purchases and sales of merchandise.
True False

19. Taxpayers that sell merchandise to their customers must use the accrual method as their
overall method of accounting.
True False

6-4
Chapter 06 - Taxable Income from Business Operations

20. Marz Services Inc. is a personal service corporation with $60 million average annual gross
receipts. Marz must use the accrual method of accounting for tax purposes.
True False

21. Laine Services, a calendar year taxpayer, billed a client for $8,450 of services on
November 30, 2012, and received a check in full payment from the client on January 12,
2013. If Poole is an accrual basis taxpayer, it reports $8,450 taxable income in 2012.
True False

22. Keagan Company, a calendar year taxpayer, incurred $1,490 of long-distance telephone
charges in December 2012 and mailed a check to the telephone company on January 4, 2013.
If Poole is an accrual basis taxpayer, it reports a $1,490 tax deduction in 2013.
True False

23. According to the GAAP principle of conservatism, firms should delay the realization of
uncertain revenues and gains and accelerate the realization of uncertain expenses and losses.
True False

24. The principle of conservatism reflected by GAAP is identical to the principle of

conservatism reflected in the tax law.
True False

25. A permanent difference between book income and taxable income affects only one
taxable year.
True False

26. A temporary difference between book income and taxable income results when an item of
income reflected on the books is never included in taxable income.
True False

6-5
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were newly erected, untenanted flat houses with the paint still on
the window panes, and on the other side, detached villas, a
roadhouse, an orphan asylum, a glimpse of the Hudson.
“Let me out,” yelled Mr. Schwab, “what you trying to do? Do you
think a few blocks’ll make any difference to a telephone? You think
you’re damned smart, don’t you? But you won’t feel so fresh when
I get on the long distance. You let me down,” he threatened, “or,
I’ll——”
With a sickening skidding of wheels, Winthrop whirled the car
round a corner and into the Lafayette Boulevard, that for miles
runs along the cliff of the Hudson.
“Yes,” asked Winthrop, “what will you do?” On one side was a
high steep bank, on the other many trees, and through them
below, the river. But there were no houses, and at half-past eight
in the morning those who later drive upon the boulevard were still
in bed.
“What will you do?” repeated Winthrop.
Miss Forbes, apparently as much interested in Mr. Schwab’s
answer as Winthrop, leaned forward. Winthrop raised his voice
above the whir of flying wheels, the rushing wind, and scattering
pebbles.
“I asked you into this car,” he shouted, “because I meant to keep
you in it until I had you where you couldn’t do any mischief. I told
you I’d give you something better than The Journal I would give
you, and I am going to give you a happy day in the country. We’re
now on our way to this lady’s house. You are my guest, and you
can play golf, and bridge, and the piano, and eat and drink until
the polls close, and after that you can go to the devil. If you jump
out at this speed, you will break your neck. And if I have to slow up
for anything, and you try to get away, I’ll go after you—it doesn’t
matter where it is—and break every bone in your body.”
“Yah! you can’t!” shrieked Mr. Schwab. “You can’t do it!” The
madness of the flying engines had got upon his nerves. Their
poison was surging in his veins. He knew he had only to touch his
elbow against the elbow of Winthrop, and he could throw the three
of them into eternity. He was travelling on air, uplifted, defiant,
carried beyond himself.
“I can’t do what?” asked Winthrop.
The words reached Schwab from an immeasurable distance, as
from another planet, a calm, humdrum planet on which events
moved in commonplace, orderly array. Without a jar, with no
transition stage, instead of hurtling through space, Mr. Schwab
found himself luxuriously seated in a cushioned chair, motionless,
at the side of a steep bank. For a mile before him stretched an
empty road. And beside him in the car, with arms folded calmly on
the wheel, there glared at him a grim, alert young man.
“I can’t do what?” growled the young man.
A feeling of great loneliness fell upon “Izzy” Schwab. Where
were now those officers, who in the police courts were at his beck
and call? Where the numbered houses, the passing surface cars,
the sweating multitudes of Eighth Avenue? In all the world he was
alone, alone on an empty country road, with a grim, alert young
man.
“When I asked you how you knew my name,” said the young
man, “I thought you knew me as having won some races in Florida
last winter. This is the car that won. I thought maybe you might
have heard of me when I was captain of a football team at—a
university. If you have any idea that you can jump from this car
and not be killed, or that I cannot pound you into a pulp, let me
prove to you you’re wrong—now. We’re quite alone. Do you wish
to get down?”
“No,” shrieked Schwab, “I won’t!” He turned appealingly to the
young lady. “You’re a witness,” he cried. “If he assaults me, he’s
liable. I haven’t done nothing.”
“We’re near Yonkers,” said the young man, “and if you try to
take advantage of my having to go slow through the town, you
know now what will happen to you.”
Mr. Schwab having instantly planned, on reaching Yonkers, to
leap from the car into the arms of the village constable, with
suspicious alacrity assented. The young man regarded him
doubtfully.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to show you,” said the young man. He laid
two fingers on Mr. Schwab’s wrist; looking at him, as he did so,
steadily and thoughtfully, like a physician feeling a pulse. Mr.
Schwab screamed. When he had seen policemen twist steel
nippers on the wrists of prisoners, he had thought, when the
prisoners shrieked and writhed, they were acting. He now knew
they were not.
“Now, will you promise?” demanded the grim young man.
“Yes,” gasped Mr. Schwab. “I’ll sit still. I won’t do nothing.”
 “Good,” muttered Winthrop.
A troubled voice that carried to the heart of Schwab a promise of
protection, said: “Mr. Schwab, would you be more comfortable
back here with me?”
Mr. Schwab turned two terrified eyes in the direction of the
voice. He saw the beautiful young lady regarding him kindly,
compassionately; with just a suspicion of a smile. Mr. Schwab
instantly scrambled to safety over the front seat into the body of
the car. Miss Forbes made way for the prisoner beside her and he
sank back with a nervous, apologetic sigh. The alert young man
was quick to follow the lead of the lady.
“You’ll find caps and goggles in the boot, Schwab,” he said
hospitably. “You had better put them on. We are going rather fast
now.” He extended a magnificent case of pigskin, that bloomed
with fat black cigars. “Try one of these,” said the hospitable young
man. The emotions that swept Mr. Schwab he found difficult to
pursue, but he raised his hat to the lady. “May I, Miss?” he said.
“Certainly,” said the lady.
There was a moment of delay while with fingers that slightly
trembled, Mr. Schwab selected an amazing green cap and lit his
cigar; and then the car swept forward, singing and humming
happily, and scattering the autumn leaves. The young lady leaned
toward him with a book in a leather cover. She placed her finger
on a twisting red line that trickled through a page of type.
“We’re just here,” said the young lady, “and we ought to reach
home, which is just about there, in an hour.”
“I see,” said Schwab. But all he saw was a finger in a white glove,
and long eyelashes tangled in a gray veil.
For many minutes or, for all Schwab knew, for many miles, the
young lady pointed out to him the places along the Hudson, of
which he had read in the public school history, and quaint old
manor houses set in glorious lawns; and told him who lived in
them. Schwab knew the names as belonging to down-town streets,
and up-town clubs. He became nervously humble, intensely polite,
he felt he was being carried as an honored guest into the very
heart of the Four Hundred, and when the car jogged slowly down
the main street of Yonkers, although a policeman stood idly within
a yard of him, instead of shrieking to him for help, “Izzy” Schwab
looked at him scornfully across the social gulf that separated
them, with all the intolerance he believed becoming in the upper
classes.
“Those bicycle cops,” he said confidentially to Miss Forbes, “are
too chesty.”
The car turned in between stone pillars, and under an arch of
red and golden leaves, and swept up a long avenue to a house of
innumerable roofs. It was the grandest house Mr. Schwab had
ever entered, and when two young men in striped waistcoats and
many brass buttons ran down the stone steps and threw open the
door of the car, his heart fluttered between fear and pleasure.
Lounging before an open fire in the hall were a number of young
men, who welcomed Winthrop delightedly, and to all of whom Mr.
Schwab was formally presented. As he was introduced he held
each by the hand and elbow and said impressively, and much to
the other’s embarrassment, “What name, please?”
Then one of the servants conducted him to a room opening on
the hall, from whence he heard stifled exclamations and laughter,
and some one saying “Hush.” But “Izzy” Schwab did not care. The
slave in brass buttons was proffering him ivory-backed hair-
brushes, and obsequiously removing the dust from his coat collar.
Mr. Schwab explained to him that he was not dressed for
automobiling, as Mr. Winthrop had invited him quite informally.
The man was most charmingly sympathetic. And when he
returned to the hall every one received him with the most genial,
friendly interest. Would he play golf, or tennis, or pool, or walk
over the farm, or just look on? It seemed the wish of each to be his
escort. Never had he been so popular.
He said he would “just look on.” And so, during the last and
decisive day of the “whirlwind” campaign, while in Eighth Avenue
voters were being challenged, beaten, and bribed, bonfires were
burning, and “extras” were appearing every half-hour, “Izzy”
Schwab, the Tammany henchman, with a secret worth twenty
thousand votes, sat a prisoner, in a wicker chair, with a drink and
a cigar, guarded by four young men in flannels, who played tennis
violently at five dollars a corner.
It was always a great day in the life of “Izzy” Schwab. After a
luncheon, which, as he later informed his friends, could not have
cost less than “two dollars a plate and drink all you like,” Sam
Forbes took him on at pool. Mr. Schwab had learned the game in
the cellars of Eighth Avenue at two and a half cents a cue, and
now, even in Columbus Circle he was a star. So, before the sun had
set Mr. Forbes, who at pool rather fancied himself, was seventy-
five dollars poorer, and Mr. Schwab just that much to the good.
Then there followed a strange ceremony called tea, or, if you
preferred it, whiskey and soda; and the tall footman bent before
him with huge silver salvers laden down with flickering silver
lamps, and bubbling soda bottles, and cigars, and cigarettes.
“You could have filled your pockets with twenty-five cent
Havanas, and nobody would have said nothing!” declared Mr.
Schwab, and his friends, who never had enjoyed his chance to
study at such close quarters the truly rich, nodded enviously.
At six o’clock Mr. Schwab led Winthrop into the big library and
asked for his ticket of leave.
“They’ll be counting the votes soon,” he begged. “I can’t do no
harm now, and I don’t mean to. I didn’t see nothing, and I won’t
say nothing. But it’s election night, and—and I just got to be on
Broadway.”
“Right,” said Winthrop, “I’ll have a car take you in, and if you
will accept this small check——”
“No!” roared “Izzy” Schwab. Afterward he wondered how he
came to do it. “You’ve give me a good time, Mr. Winthrop. You’ve
treated me fine, all the gentlemen have treated me nice. I’m not a
blackmailer, Mr. Winthrop.” Mr. Schwab’s voice shook slightly.
“Nonsense, Schwab, you didn’t let me finish,” said Winthrop,
“I’m likely to need a lawyer any time; this is a retaining fee.
Suppose I exceed the speed limit—I’m liable to do that——”
“You bet you are!” exclaimed Mr. Schwab violently.
“Well, then, I’ll send for you, and there isn’t a police magistrate,
nor any of the traffic squad, you can’t handle, is there?”
Mr. Schwab flushed with pleasure.
“You can count on me,” he vowed, “and your friends, too, and
the ladies,” he added gallantly. “If ever the ladies want to get bail,
tell ’em to telephone for ‘Izzy’ Schwab. Of course,” he said
reluctantly, “if it’s a retaining fee——”
But when he read the face of the check he exclaimed in protest:
“But, Mr. Winthrop, this is more than The Journal would have
give me!”
They put him in a car belonging to one of the other men, and all
came out on the steps to wave him “good-by,” and he drove
magnificently into his own district, where there were over a dozen
men who swore he tipped the French chauffeur a five-dollar bill
“just like it was a cigarette.”
All of election day since her arrival in Winthrop’s car Miss
Forbes had kept to herself. In the morning, when the other young
people were out of doors, she remained in her room, and after
luncheon, when they gathered round the billiard table, she sent for
her cart and drove off alone. The others thought she was
concerned over the possible result of the election, and did not
want to disturb them by her anxiety. Winthrop, thinking the
presence of Schwab embarrassed her, recalling as it did Peabody’s
unfortunate conduct of the morning, blamed himself for bringing
Schwab to the house. But he need not have distressed himself.
Miss Forbes was thinking neither of Schwab nor Peabody, nor was
she worried or embarrassed. On the contrary, she was completely
happy.
When that morning she had seen Peabody running up the steps
of the Elevated, all the doubts, the troubles, questions, and
misgivings that night and day for the last three months had upset
her, fell from her shoulders like the pilgrim’s heavy pack. For
months she had been telling herself that the unrest she felt when
with Peabody was due to her not being able to appreciate the
importance of those big affairs in which he was so interested; in
which he was so admirable a figure. She had, as she supposed,
loved him, because he was earnest, masterful, intent of purpose.
His had seemed a fine character. When she had compared him
with the amusing boys of her own age, the easy-going joking
youths to whom the betterment of New York was of no concern,
she had been proud in her choice. She was glad Peabody was
ambitious. She was ambitious for him. She was glad to have him
consult her on those questions of local government, to listen to his
fierce, contemptuous abuse of Tammany. And yet early in their
engagement she had missed something, something she had never
known, but which she felt sure should exist. Whether she had seen
it in the lives of others, or read of it in romances, or whether it was
there because it was nature to desire to be loved, she did not know.
But long before Winthrop returned from his trip round the world,
in her meetings with the man she was to marry, she had begun to
find that there was something lacking. And Winthrop had shown
her that this something lacking was the one thing needful. When
Winthrop had gone abroad he was only one of her brother’s
several charming friends. One of the amusing merry youths who
came and went in the house as freely as Sam himself. Now, after
two years’ absence, he refused to be placed in that category.
He rebelled on the first night of his return. As she came down to
the dinner of welcome her brother was giving Winthrop, he stared
at her as though she were a ghost, and said, so solemnly that every
one in the room, even Peabody, smiled: “Now I know why I came
home.” That he refused to recognize her engagement to Peabody,
that on every occasion he told her, or by some act showed her, he
loved her; that he swore she should never marry any one but
himself, and that he would never marry any one but her, did not at
first, except to annoy, in any way impress her.
But he showed her what in her intercourse with Peabody was
lacking. At first she wished Peabody could find time to be as fond
of her, as foolishly fond of her, as was Winthrop. But she realized
that this was unreasonable. Winthrop was just a hot-headed
impressionable boy, Peabody was a man doing a man’s work. And
then she found that week after week she became more difficult to
please. Other things in which she wished Peabody might be more
like Winthrop, obtruded themselves. Little things which she was
ashamed to notice, but which rankled; and big things, such as
consideration for others, and a sense of humor, and not talking of
himself. Since this campaign began, at times she had felt that if
Peabody said “I” once again, she must scream. She assured herself
she was as yet unworthy of him, that her intelligence was weak,
that as she grew older and so better able to understand serious
affairs, such as the importance of having an honest man at Albany
as Lieutenant-Governor, they would become more in sympathy.
And now, at a stroke, the whole fabric of self-deception fell from
her. It was not that she saw Peabody so differently, but that she
saw herself and her own heart, and where it lay. And she knew
that “Billy” Winthrop, gentle, joking, selfish only in his love for
her, held it in his two strong hands.
For the moment, when as she sat in the car deserted by Peabody
this truth flashed upon her, she forgot the man lying injured in the
street, the unscrubbed mob crowding about her. She was
conscious only that a great weight had been lifted. That her blood
was flowing again, leaping, beating, dancing through her body. It
seemed as though she could not too quickly tell Winthrop. For
both of them she had lost out of their lives many days. She had
risked losing him for always. Her only thought was to make up to
him and to herself the wasted time. But throughout the day the
one-time welcome, but now intruding, friends and the
innumerable conventions of hospitality required her to smile and
show an interest, when her heart and mind were crying out the
one great fact.
It was after dinner, and the members of the house party were
scattered between the billiard-room and the piano. Sam Forbes
returned from the telephone.
“Tammany,” he announced, “concedes the election of Jerome by
forty thousand votes, and that he carries his ticket with him.
Ernest Peabody is elected his Lieutenant-Governor by a thousand
votes. Ernest,” he added, “seems to have had a close call.” There
was a tremendous chorus of congratulations in the cause of
Reform. They drank the health of Peabody. Peabody himself, on
the telephone, informed Sam Forbes that a conference of the
leaders would prevent his being present with them that evening.
The enthusiasm for Reform perceptibly increased.
An hour later Winthrop came over to Beatrice and held out his
hand. “I’m going to slip away,” he said. “Good-night.”
“Going away!” exclaimed Beatrice.
Her voice showed such apparently acute concern that Winthrop
wondered how the best of women could be so deceitful, even to be
polite.
“I promised some men,” he stammered, “to drive them down-
town to see the crowds.”
Beatrice shook her head.
“It’s far too late for that,” she said. “Tell me the real reason.”
Winthrop turned away his eyes.
“Oh! the real reason,” he said gravely, “is the same old reason,
the one I’m not allowed to talk about. It’s cruelly hard when I
don’t see you,” he went on, slowly dragging out the words, “but it’s
harder when I do; so I’m going to say ‘good-night’ and run into
town.”
He stood for a moment staring moodily at the floor, and then
dropped into a chair beside her.
“And, I believe, I’ve not told you,” he went on, “that on
Wednesday I’m running away for good, that is, for a year or two.
I’ve made all the fight I can and I lose, and there is no use in my
staying on here to—well—to suffer, that is the plain English of it.
So,” he continued briskly, “I won’t be here for the ceremony, and
this is ‘good-by’ as well as ‘good-night.’”
“Where are you going for a year?” asked Miss Forbes.
Her voice now showed no concern. It even sounded as though
she did not take his news seriously, as though as to his movements
she was possessed of a knowledge superior to his own. He tried to
speak in matter-of-fact tones.
“To Uganda!” he said.
“To Uganda?” repeated Miss Forbes. “Where is Uganda?”
“It is in East Africa; I had bad luck there last trip, but now I
know the country better, and I ought to get some good shooting.”
Miss Forbes appeared indifferently incredulous. In her eyes
there was a look of radiant happiness. It rendered them
bewilderingly beautiful.
“On Wednesday,” she said. “Won’t you come and see us again
before you sail for Uganda?”
Winthrop hesitated.

“I’ll stop in and say ‘good-by’ to your mother if she’s in town,

and to thank her. She’s been awfully good to me. But you—I really
would rather not see you again. You understand, or rather, you
don’t understand, and,” he added vehemently, “you never will
understand.” He stood looking down at her miserably.
On the driveway outside there was a crunching on the gravel of
heavy wheels and an aurora-borealis of lights.
“There’s your car,” said Miss Forbes. “I’ll go out and see you
off.”
“You’re very good,” muttered Winthrop. He could not
understand. This parting from her was the great moment in his
life, and although she must know that, she seemed to be making it
unnecessarily hard for him. He had told her he was going to a
place very far away, to be gone a long time, and she spoke of
saying “good-by” to him as pleasantly as though it was his
intention to return from Uganda for breakfast.
Instead of walking through the hall where the others were
gathered, she led him out through one of the French windows
upon the terrace, and along it to the steps. When she saw the
chauffeur standing by the car, she stopped.
 “I thought you were going alone,” she said.
“I am,” answered Winthrop. “It’s not Fred; that’s Sam’s
chauffeur; he only brought the car around.”
The man handed Winthrop his coat and cap, and left them, and
Winthrop seated himself at the wheel. She stood above him on the
top step. In the evening gown of lace and silver she looked a part
of the moonlight night. For each of them the moment had arrived.
Like a swimmer standing on the bank gathering courage for the
plunge, Miss Forbes gave a trembling, shivering sigh.
“You’re cold,” said Winthrop, gently. “You must go in. Good-by.”
“It isn’t that,” said the girl. “Have you an extra coat?”
“It isn’t cold enough for——”
“I meant for me,” stammered the girl in a frightened voice. “I
thought perhaps you would take me a little way, and bring me
back.”
At first the young man did not answer, but sat staring in front of
him, then, he said simply:
“It’s awfully good of you, Beatrice. I won’t forget it.”
It was a wonderful autumn night, moonlight, cold, clear and
brilliant. She stepped in beside him and wrapped herself in one of
his greatcoats. They started swiftly down the avenue of trees.
“No, not fast,” begged the girl, “I want to talk to you.”
The car checked and rolled forward smoothly, sometimes in
deep shadow, sometimes in the soft silver glamour of the moon;
beneath them the fallen leaves crackled and rustled under the slow
moving wheels. At the highway Winthrop hesitated. It lay before
them arched with great and ancient elms; below, the Hudson
glittered and rippled in the moonlight.
“Which way do you want to go?” said Winthrop.
His voice was very grateful, very humble.
The girl did not answer.
There was a long, long pause.
Then he turned and looked at her and saw her smiling at him
with that light in her eyes that never was on land or sea.
“To Uganda,” said the girl.
 THE PRINCESS ALINE

H. R. H. the Princess Aline of Hohenwald came into the life of

Morton Carlton—or “Morney” Carlton, as men called him—of New
York City, when that young gentleman’s affairs and affections
were best suited to receive her. Had she made her appearance
three years sooner or three years later, it is quite probable that she
would have passed on out of his life with no more recognition
from him than would have been expressed in a look of admiring
curiosity.
But coming when she did, when his time and heart were both
unoccupied, she had an influence upon young Mr. Carlton which
led him into doing several wise and many foolish things, and
which remained with him always. Carlton had reached a point in
his life, and very early in his life, when he could afford to sit at
ease and look back with modest satisfaction to what he had forced
himself to do, and forward with pleasurable anticipations to
whatsoever he might choose to do in the future. The world had
appreciated what he had done, and had put much to his credit,
and he was prepared to draw upon this grandly.
At the age of twenty he had found himself his own master, with
excellent family connections, but with no family, his only relative
being a bachelor uncle, who looked at life from the point of view of
the Union Club’s windows, and who objected to his nephew’s
leaving Harvard to take up the study of art in Paris. In that city
(where at Julian’s he was nicknamed the Junior Carlton, for the
obvious reason that he was the older of the two Carltons in the
class, and because he was well-dressed) he had shown himself a
harder worker than others who were less careful of their
appearance and of their manners. His work, of which he did not
talk, and his ambitions, of which he also did not talk, bore fruit
early, and at twenty-six he had become a portrait-painter of
international reputation. Then the French government purchased
one of his paintings at an absurdly small figure, and placed it in
the Luxembourg, from whence it would in time depart to be
buried in the hall of some provincial city; and American
millionaires, and English Lord Mayors, members of Parliament,
and members of the Institute, masters of hounds in pink coats,
and ambassadors in gold lace, and beautiful women of all
nationalities and conditions sat before his easel. And so when he
returned to New York he was welcomed with an enthusiasm which
showed that his countrymen had feared that the artistic
atmosphere of the Old World had stolen him from them forever.
He was particularly silent, even at this date, about his work, and
listened to what others had to say of it with much awe, not
unmixed with some amusement, that it should be he who was
capable of producing anything worthy of such praise. We have
been told what the mother duck felt when her ugly duckling
turned into a swan, but we have never considered how much the
ugly duckling must have marvelled also.
“Carlton is probably the only living artist,” a brother artist had
said of him, “who fails to appreciate how great his work is.” And
on this being repeated to Carlton by a good-natured friend, he had
replied cheerfully, “Well, I’m sorry, but it is certainly better to be
the only one who doesn’t appreciate it than to be the only one who
does.”
He had never understood why such a responsibility had been
intrusted to him. It was, as he expressed it, not at all in his line,
and young girls who sought to sit at the feet of the master found
him making love to them in the most charming manner in the
world, as though he were not entitled to all the rapturous
admiration of their very young hearts, but had to sue for it like any
ordinary mortal. Carlton always felt as though some day some one
would surely come along and say: “Look here, young man, this
talent doesn’t belong to you; it’s mine. What do you mean by
pretending that such an idle good-natured youth as yourself is
entitled to such a gift of genius?” He felt that he was keeping it in
trust, as it were; that it had been changed at birth, and that the
proper guardian would eventually relieve him of his treasure.
 Personally Carlton was of the opinion that he should have been
born in the active days of knights-errant—to have had nothing
more serious to do than to ride abroad with a blue ribbon fastened
to the point of his lance, and with the spirit to unhorse any one
who objected to its color, or to the claims of superiority of the
noble lady who had tied it there. There was not, in his opinion, at
the present day any sufficiently pronounced method of declaring
admiration for the many lovely women this world contained. A
proposal of marriage he considered to be a mean and clumsy
substitute for the older way, and was uncomplimentary to the
many other women left unasked, and marriage itself required
much more constancy than he could give. He had a most romantic
and old-fashioned ideal of women as a class, and from the age of
fourteen had been a devotee of hundreds of them as individuals;
and though in that time his ideal had received several severe
shocks, he still believed that the “not impossible she” existed
somewhere, and his conscientious efforts to find out whether
every woman he met might not be that one had led him not
unnaturally into many difficulties.
“The trouble with me is,” he said, “that I care too much to make
Platonic friendship possible, and don’t care enough to marry any
particular woman—that is, of course, supposing that any
particular one would be so little particular as to be willing to
marry me. How embarrassing it would be, now,” he argued, “if
when you were turning away from the chancel after the ceremony
you should look at one of the bridemaids and see the woman
whom you really should have married! How distressing that would
be! You couldn’t very well stop and say: ‘I am very sorry, my dear,
but it seems I have made a mistake. That young woman on the
right has a most interesting and beautiful face. I am very much
afraid that she is the one.’ It would be too late then; while now, in
my free state, I can continue my search without any sense of
responsibility.”
“Why”—he would exclaim—“I have walked miles to get a
glimpse of a beautiful woman in a suburban window, and time and
time again when I have seen a face in a passing brougham I have
pursued it in a hansom, and learned where the owner of the face
lived, and spent weeks in finding some one to present me, only to
discover that she was self-conscious or uninteresting or engaged.
Still I had assured myself that she was not the one. I am very
conscientious, and I consider that it is my duty to go so far with
every woman I meet as to be able to learn whether she is or is not
the one, and the sad result is that I am like a man who follows the
hounds but is never in at the death.”
“Well,” some married woman would say, grimly, “I hope you
will get your deserts some day; and you will, too. Some day some
girl will make you suffer for this.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Carlton would answer, meekly. “Lots of
women have made me suffer, if that’s what you think I need.”
“Some day,” the married woman would prophesy, “you will care
for a woman so much that you will have no eyes for any one else.
That’s the way it is when one is married.”
“Well, when that’s the way it is with me,” Carlton would reply, “I
certainly hope to get married; but until it is, I think it is safer for
all concerned that I should not.”
Then Carlton would go to the club and complain bitterly to one
of his friends.
“How unfair married women are!” he would say. “The idea of
thinking a man could have no eyes but for one woman! Suppose I
had never heard a note of music until I was twenty-five years of
age, and was then given my hearing. Do you suppose my pleasure
in music would make me lose my pleasure in everything else?
Suppose I met and married a girl at twenty-five. Is that going to
make me forget all the women I knew before I met her? I think
not. As a matter of fact, I really deserve a great deal of credit for
remaining single, for I am naturally very affectionate; but when I
see what poor husbands my friends make, I prefer to stay as I am
until I am sure that I will make a better one. It is only fair to the
woman.”
Carlton was sitting in the club alone. He had that sense of
superiority over his fellows and of irresponsibility to the world
about him that comes to a man when he knows that his trunks are
being packed and that his state-room is engaged. He was leaving
New York long before most of his friends could get away. He did
not know just where he was going, and preferred not to know. He
wished to have a complete holiday, and to see Europe as an idle
tourist, and not as an artist with an eye to his own improvement.
He had plenty of time and money; he was sure to run across
friends in the big cities, and acquaintances he could make or not,
as he pleased, en route. He was not sorry to go. His going would
serve to put an end to what gossip there might be of his
engagement to numerous young women whose admiration for him
as an artist, he was beginning to fear, had taken on a more
personal tinge. “I wish,” he said, gloomily, “I didn’t like people so
well. It seems to cause them and me such a lot of trouble.”
He sighed, and stretched out his hand for a copy of one of the
English illustrated papers. It had a fresher interest to him because
the next number of it that he would see would be in the city in
which it was printed. The paper in his hands was the St. James
Budget, and it contained much fashionable intelligence
concerning the preparations for a royal wedding which was soon
to take place between members of two of the reigning families of
Europe. There was on one page a half-tone reproduction of a
photograph, which showed a group of young people belonging to
several of these reigning families, with their names and titles
printed above and below the picture. They were princesses,
archdukes, or grand dukes, and they were dressed like young
English men and women, and with no sign about them of their
possible military or social rank.
One of the young princesses in the photograph was looking out
of it and smiling in a tolerant, amused way, as though she had
thought of something which she could not wait to enjoy until after
the picture was taken. She was not posing consciously, as were
some of the others, but was sitting in a natural attitude, with one
arm over the back of her chair, and with her hands clasped before
her. Her face was full of a fine intelligence and humor, and though
one of the other princesses in the group was far more beautiful,
this particular one had a much more high-bred air, and there was
something of a challenge in her smile that made any one who
looked at the picture smile also. Carlton studied the face for some
time, and mentally approved of its beauty; the others seemed in
comparison wooden and unindividual, but this one looked like a
person he might have known, and whom he would certainly have
liked. He turned the page and surveyed the features of the Oxford
crew with lesser interest, and then turned the page again and
gazed critically and severely at the face of the princess with the
high-bred smile. He had hoped that he would find it less
interesting at a second glance, but it did not prove to be so.
“‘The Princess Aline of Hohenwald,’” he read. “She’s probably
engaged to one of those Johnnies beside her, and the Grand-Duke
of Hohenwald behind her must be her brother.” He put the paper
down and went in to luncheon, and diverted himself by mixing a
salad dressing; but after a few moments he stopped in the midst of
this employment, and told the waiter, with some unnecessary
sharpness, to bring him the last copy of the St. James Budget.
“Confound it!” he added, to himself.
He opened the paper with a touch of impatience and gazed long
and earnestly at the face of the Princess Aline, who continued to
return his look with the same smile of amused tolerance. Carlton
noted every detail of her tailor-made gown, of her high mannish
collar, of her tie, and even the rings on her hand. There was
nothing about her of which he could fairly disapprove. He
wondered why it was that she could not have been born an
approachable New York girl instead of a princess of a little
German duchy, hedged in throughout her single life, and to be
traded off eventually in marriage with as much consideration as
though she were a princess of a real kingdom.
“She looks jolly too,” he mused, in an injured tone; “and so very
clever; and of course she has a beautiful complexion. All those
German girls have. Your Royal Highness is more than pretty,” he
said, bowing his head gravely. “You look as a princess should look.
I am sure it was one of your ancestors who discovered the dried
pea under a dozen mattresses.” He closed the paper, and sat for a
moment with a perplexed smile of consideration. “Waiter,” he
exclaimed, suddenly, “send a messenger-boy to Brentano’s for a
copy of the St. James Budget, and bring me the Almanach de
Gotha from the library. It is a little fat red book on the table near
the window.” Then Carlton opened the paper again and propped it
up against a carafe, and continued his critical survey of the
Princess Aline. He seized the Almanach, when it came, with some
eagerness.
“Hohenwald (Maison de Grasse),” he read, and in small type
below it:
“1. Ligne cadette (régnante) grand-ducale: Hohenwald et de Grasse.
“Guillaume-Albert-Frederick-Charles-Louis, Grand-Duc de Hohenwald et de Grasse,
etc., etc., etc.”
“That’s the brother, right enough,” muttered Carlton.
And under the heading “Sœurs” he read:
“4. Psse Aline.—Victoria-Beatrix-Louise-Helene, Alt. Gr.-Duc. Née à Grasse, Juin,
1872.”
“Twenty-two years old,” exclaimed Carlton. “What a perfect age!
I could not have invented a better one.” He looked from the book
to the face before him. “Now, my dear young lady,” he said, “I
know all about you. You live at Grasse, and you are connected, to
judge by your names, with all the English royalties; and very
pretty names they are, too—Aline, Helene, Victoria, Beatrix. You
must be much more English than you are German; and I suppose
you live in a little old castle, and your brother has a standing army
of twelve men, and some day you are to marry a Russian Grand-
Duke, or whoever your brother’s Prime Minister—if he has a
Prime Minister—decides is best for the politics of your little toy
kingdom. Ah! to think,” exclaimed Carlton, softly, “that such a
lovely and glorious creature as that should be sacrificed for so
insignificant a thing as the peace of Europe when she might make
some young man happy?”
He carried a copy of the paper to his room, and cut the picture
of the group out of the page and pasted it carefully on a stiff piece
of card-board. Then he placed it on his dressing-table, in front of a
photograph of a young woman in a large silver frame—which was
a sign, had the young woman but known it, that her reign for the
time being was over.
Nolan, the young Irishman who “did for” Carlton, knew better
than to move it when he found it there. He had learned to study
his master since he had joined him in London, and understood
that one photograph in the silver frame was entitled to more
consideration than three others on the writing-desk or half a
dozen on the mantel-piece. Nolan had seen them come and go; he
had watched them rise and fall; he had carried notes to them, and
books and flowers; and had helped to depose them from the silver
frame and move them on by degrees down the line, until they went
ingloriously into the big brass bowl on the side table. Nolan
approved highly of this last choice. He did not know which one of
the three in the group it might be; but they were all pretty, and
their social standing was certainly distinguished.
Guido, the Italian model who ruled over the studio, and Nolan
were busily packing when Carlton entered. He always said that
Guido represented him in his professional and Nolan in his social
capacity. Guido cleaned the brushes and purchased the artists’
materials; Nolan cleaned his riding-boots and bought his theatre
and railroad tickets.
“Guido,” said Carlton, “there are two sketches I made in
Germany last year, one of the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig
the actor; get them out for me, will you, and pack them for
shipping. Nolan,” he went on, “here is a telegram to send.”
 Nolan would not have read a letter, but he looked upon
telegrams as public documents, the reading of them as part of his
perquisites. This one was addressed to Oscar Von Holtz, First
Secretary, German Embassy, Washington, D. C., and the message
read:
“Please telegraph me full title and address Princess Aline of Hohenwald. Where would
a letter reach her?

“M C .”

The next morning Nolan carried to the express office a box

containing two oil-paintings on small canvases. They were
addressed to the man in London who attended to the shipping and
forwarding of Carlton’s pictures in that town.

There was a tremendous crowd on the New York. She sailed at

the obliging hour of eleven in the morning, and many people, in
consequence, whose affection would not have stood in the way of
their breakfast, made it a point to appear and to say good-by.
Carlton, for his part, did not notice them; he knew by experience
that the attractive-looking people always leave a steamer when the
whistle blows, and that the next most attractive-looking, who
remain on board, are ill all the way over. A man that he knew
seized him by the arm as he was entering his cabin, and asked if he
were crossing or just seeing people off.
“Well, then, I want to introduce you to Miss Morris and her
aunt, Mrs. Downs; they are going over, and I should be glad if you
would be nice to them. But you know her, I guess?” he asked, over
his shoulder, as Carlton pushed his way after him down the deck.
“I know who she is,” he said.
Miss Edith Morris was surrounded by a treble circle of admiring
friends, and seemed to be holding her own. They all stopped when
Carlton came up, and looked at him rather closely, and those
whom he knew seemed to mark the fact by a particularly hearty
greeting. The man who had brought him up acted as though he
had successfully accomplished a somewhat difficult and creditable
feat. Carlton bowed himself away, leaving Miss Morris to her
friends, and saying that she would probably have to see him later,
whether she wished it or not. He then went to meet the aunt, who
received him kindly, for there were very few people on the
passenger list, and she was glad they were to have his company.
Before he left she introduced him to a young man named Abbey,
who was hovering around her most anxiously, and whose interest,
she seemed to think it necessary to explain, was due to the fact
that he was engaged to Miss Morris. Mr. Abbey left the steamer
when the whistle blew, and Carlton looked after him gratefully. He
always enjoyed meeting attractive girls who were engaged, as it
left him no choice in the matter, and excused him from finding out
whether or not that particular young woman was the one.
Mrs. Downs and her niece proved to be experienced sailors, and
faced the heavy sea that met the New York outside of Sandy Hook
with unconcern. Carlton joined them, and they stood together
leaning with their backs to the rail, and trying to fit the people who
flitted past them to the names on the passenger list.
“The young lady in the sailor suit,” said Miss Morris, gazing at
the top of the smoke-stack, “is Miss Kitty Flood, of Grand Rapids.
This is her first voyage, and she thinks a steamer is something like
a yacht, and dresses for the part accordingly. She does not know
that it is merely a moving hotel.”
“I am afraid,” said Carlton, “to judge from her agitation, that
hers is going to be what the professionals call a ‘dressing-room’
part. Why is it,” he asked, “that the girls on a steamer who wear
gold anchors and the men in yachting-caps are always the first to
disappear? That man with the sombrero,” he went on, “is James
M. Pollock, United States Consul to Mauritius; he is going out to
his post. I know he is the consul, because he comes from Fort
Worth, Texas, and is therefore admirably fitted to speak either
French or the native language of the island.”
“Oh, we don’t send consuls to Mauritius,” laughed Miss Morris.
“Mauritius is one of those places from which you buy stamps, but
no one really lives or goes there.”
“Where are you going, may I ask?” inquired Carlton.
Miss Morris said that they were making their way to
Constantinople and Athens, and then to Rome; that as they had
not had the time to take the southern route, they purposed to
journey across the Continent direct from Paris to the Turkish
capital by the Orient Express.
“We shall be a few days in London, and in Paris only long
enough for some clothes,” she replied.
“The trousseau,” thought Carlton. “Weeks is what she should
have said.”
 The three sat together at the captain’s table, and as the sea
continued rough, saw little of either the captain or his other
guests, and were thrown much upon the society of each other.
They had innumerable friends and interests in common; and Mrs.
Downs, who had been everywhere, and for long seasons at a time,
proved as alive as her niece, and Carlton conceived a great liking
for her. She seemed to be just and kindly minded, and, owing to
her age, to combine the wider judgment of a man with the
sympathetic interest of a woman. Sometimes they sat together in a
row and read, and gossiped over what they read, or struggled up
the deck as it rose and fell and buffeted with the wind; and later
they gathered in a corner of the saloon and ate late suppers of
Carlton’s devising, or drank tea in the captain’s cabin, which he
had thrown open to them. They had started knowing much about
one another, and this and the necessary proximity of the ship
hastened their acquaintance.
The sea grew calmer the third day out, and the sun came forth
and showed the decks as clean as bread-boards. Miss Morris and
Carlton seated themselves on the huge iron riding-bits in the bow,
and with their elbows on the rail looked down at the whirling blue
water, and rejoiced silently in the steady rush of the great vessel,
and in the uncertain warmth of the March sun. Carlton was sitting
to leeward of Miss Morris, with a pipe between his teeth. He was
warm, and at peace with the world. He had found his new
acquaintance more than entertaining. She was even friendly, and
treated him as though he were much her junior, as is the habit of
young women lately married or who are about to be married.
Carlton did not resent it; on the contrary, it made him more at his
ease with her, and as she herself chose to treat him as a youth, he
permitted himself to be as foolish as he pleased.
“I don’t know why it is,” he complained, peering over the rail,
“but whenever I look over the side to watch the waves a man in a
greasy cap always sticks his head out of a hole below me and
scatters a barrelful of ashes or potato peelings all over the ocean. It
spoils the effect for one. Next time he does it I am going to knock
out the ashes of my pipe on the back of his neck.” Miss Morris did
not consider this worthy of comment, and there was a long lazy
pause.
“You haven’t told us where you go after London,” she said; and
then, without waiting for him to reply, she asked, “Is it your
professional or your social side that you are treating to a trip this
time?”
“Who told you that?” asked Carlton, smiling.
“Oh, I don’t know. Some man. He said you were a Jekyll and
Hyde. Which is Jekyll? You see, I only know your professional
side.”
“You must try to find out for yourself by deduction,” he said, “as
you picked out the other passengers. I am going to Grasse,” he
continued. “It’s the capital of Hohenwald. Do you know it?”
“Yes,” she said; “we were there once for a few days. We went to
see the pictures. I suppose you know that the old Duke, the father
of the present one, ruined himself almost by buying pictures for
the Grasse gallery. We were there at a bad time, though, when the
palace was closed to visitors, and the gallery too. I suppose that is
what is taking you there?”
“No,” Carlton said, shaking his head. “No, it is not the pictures. I
am going to Grasse,” he said, gravely, “to see the young woman
with whom I am in love.”
Miss Morris looked up in some surprise, and smiled
consciously, with a natural feminine interest in an affair of love,
and one which was a secret as well.
“Oh,” she said, “I beg your pardon; we—I had not heard of it.”
“No, it is not a thing one could announce exactly,” said Carlton;
“it is rather in an embyro state as yet—in fact, I have not met the
young lady so far, but I mean to meet her. That’s why I am going
abroad.”
Miss Morris looked at him sharply to see if he were smiling, but
he was, on the contrary, gazing sentimentally at the horizon-line,
and puffing meditatively on his pipe. He was apparently in
earnest, and waiting for her to make some comment.
“How very interesting!” was all she could think to say.
“Yes, when you know the details, it is,—very interesting,” he
answered. “She is the Princess Aline of Hohenwald,” he explained,
bowing his head as though he were making the two young ladies
known to one another. “She has several other names, six in all,
and her age is twenty-two. That is all I know about her. I saw her
picture in an illustrated paper just before I sailed, and I made up
my mind I would meet her, and here I am. If she is not in Grasse, I
intend to follow her to wherever she may be.” He waved his pipe at
the ocean before him, and recited, with mock seriousness:
“‘Across the hills and far away,
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day,
The happy Princess followed him.’

“Only in this case, you see,” said Carlton, “I am following the

happy Princess.”
“No; but seriously, though,” said Miss Morris, “what is it you
mean? Are you going to paint her portrait?”
“I never thought of that,” exclaimed Carlton. “I don’t know but
what your idea is a good one. Miss Morris, that’s a great idea.” He
shook his head approvingly. “I did not do wrong to confide in
you,” he said. “It was perhaps taking a liberty; but as you have not
considered it as such, I am glad I spoke.”
“But you don’t really mean to tell me,” exclaimed the girl, facing
about, and nodding her head at him, “that you are going abroad
after a woman whom you have never seen, and because you like a
picture of her in a paper?”
“I do,” said Carlton. “Because I like her picture, and because she
is a Princess.”
“Well, upon my word,” said Miss Morris, gazing at him with
evident admiration, “that’s what my younger brother would call a
distinctly sporting proposition. Only I don’t see,” she added, “what
her being a Princess has to do with it.”
“You don’t?” laughed Carlton easily. “That’s the best part of it—
that’s the plot. The beauty of being in love with a Princess, Miss
Morris,” he said, “lies in the fact that you can’t marry her; that you
can love her deeply and forever, and nobody will ever come to you
and ask your intentions, or hint that after such a display of
affection you ought to do something. Now, with a girl who is not a
Princess, even if she understands the situation herself, and
wouldn’t marry you to save her life, still there is always some one
—a father, or a mother, or one of your friends—who makes it his
business to interfere, and talks about it, and bothers you both. But
with a Princess, you see, that is all eliminated. You can’t marry a
Princess, because they won’t let you. A Princess has got to marry a
real royal chap, and so you are perfectly ineligible and free to sigh
for her, and make pretty speeches to her, and see her as often as
you can, and revel in your devotion and unrequited affection.”
 Miss Morris regarded him doubtfully. She did not wish to prove
herself too credulous. “And you honestly want me, Mr. Carlton, to
believe that you are going abroad just for this?”
“You see,” Carlton answered her, “if you only knew me better
you would have no doubt on the subject at all. It isn’t the thing
some men would do, I admit, but it is exactly what any one who
knows me would expect of me. I should describe it, having had
acquaintance with the young man for some time, as being
eminently characteristic. And besides, think what a good story it
makes! Every other man who goes abroad this summer will try to
tell about his travels when he gets back to New York, and, as usual,
no one will listen to him. But they will have to listen to me. ‘You’ve
been across since I saw you last. What did you do?’ they’ll ask,
politely. And then, instead of simply telling them that I have been
in Paris or London, I can say, ‘Oh, I’ve been chasing around the
globe after the Princess Aline of Hohenwald.’ That sounds
interesting, doesn’t it? When you come to think of it,” Carlton
continued, meditatively, “it is not so very remarkable. Men go all
the way to Cuba and Mexico, and even to India, after orchids, after
a nasty flower that grows in an absurd way on the top of a tree.
Why shouldn’t a young man go as far as Germany after a beautiful
Princess, who walks on the ground, and who can talk and think
and feel? She is much more worth while than an orchid.”
Miss Morris laughed indulgently. “Well, I didn’t know such
devotion existed at this end of the century,” she said; “it’s quite
nice and encouraging. I hope you will succeed, I am sure. I only
wish we were going to be near enough to see how you get on. I
have never been a confidante when there was a real Princess
concerned,” she said; “it makes it so much more amusing. May
one ask what your plans are?”
Carlton doubted if he had any plans as yet. “I have to reach the
ground first,” he said, “and after that I must reconnoitre. I may
possibly adopt your idea, and ask to paint her portrait, only I
dislike confusing my social and professional sides. As a matter of
fact, though,” he said, after a pause, laughing guiltily, “I have done
a little of that already. I prepared her, as it were, for my coming. I
sent her studies of two pictures I made last winter in Berlin. One
of the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig, the tragedian at the
Court Theatre. I sent them to her through my London agent, so
that she would think they had come from some one of her English
friends, and I told the dealer not to let any one know who had
forwarded them. My idea was that it might help me, perhaps, if
she knew something about me before I appeared in person. It was
a sort of letter of introduction written by myself.”
“Well, really,” expostulated Miss Morris, “you certainly woo in a
royal way. Are you in the habit of giving away your pictures to any
one whose photograph you happen to like? That seems to me to be
giving new lamps for old to a degree. I must see if I haven’t some
of my sister’s photographs in my trunk. She is considered very
beautiful.”
“Well, you wait until you see this particular portrait, and you
will understand it better,” said Carlton.
The steamer reached Southampton early in the afternoon, and
Carlton secured a special compartment on the express to London
for Mrs. Downs and her niece and himself, with one adjoining for
their maid and Nolan. It was a beautiful day, and Carlton sat with
his eyes fixed upon the passing fields and villages, exclaiming with
pleasure from time to time at the white roads and the feathery
trees and hedges, and the red roofs of the inns and square towers
of the village churches.
“Hedges are better than barbed-wire fences, aren’t they?” he
said. “You see that girl picking wild flowers from one of them? She
looks just as though she were posing for a picture for an illustrated
paper. She couldn’t pick flowers from a barbed-wire fence, could
she? And there would probably be a tramp along the road
somewhere to frighten her; and see—the chap in knickerbockers
farther down the road leaning on the stile. I am sure he is waiting
for her; and here comes a coach,” he ran on. “Don’t the red wheels
look well against the hedges? It’s a pretty little country, England,
isn’t it?—like a private park or a model village. I am glad to get
back to it—I am glad to see the three-and-six signs with the little
slanting dash between the shillings and pennies. Yes, even the
steam-rollers and the man with the red flag in front are welcome.”
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Downs, “it’s because one has been so long
on the ocean that the ride to London seems so interesting. It
always pays me for the entire trip. Yes,” she said, with a sigh, “in
spite of the patent-medicine signs they have taken to putting up all
along the road. It seems a pity they should adopt our bad habits
instead of our good ones.”
“They are a bit slow at adopting anything,” commented Carlton.
“Did you know, Mrs. Downs, that electric lights are still as scarce
in London as they are in Timbuctoo? Why, I saw an electric-light
plant put up in a Western town in three days once; there were over
a hundred burners in one saloon, and the engineer who put them
up told me in confidence that——”
What the chief engineer told him in confidence was never
disclosed, for at that moment Miss Morris interrupted him with a
sudden sharp exclamation.
“Oh, Mr. Carlton,” she exclaimed, breathlessly, “listen to this!”
She had been reading one of the dozen papers which Carlton had
purchased at the station, and was now shaking one of them at him,
with her eyes fixed on the open page.
“My dear Edith,” remonstrated her aunt, “Mr. Carlton was
telling us——”
“Yes, I know,” exclaimed Miss Morris, laughing, “but this
interests him much more than electric lights. Who do you think is
in London?” she cried, raising her eyes to his, and pausing for
proper dramatic effect. “The Princess Aline of Hohenwald!”
“No?” shouted Carlton.
“Yes,” Miss Morris answered, mocking his tone. “Listen. ‘The
Queen’s Drawing-room’—em—e—m—‘on her right was the
Princess of Wales’—em—m. Oh, I can’t find it—no—yes, here it is.
‘Next to her stood the Princess Aline of Hohenwald. She wore a
dress of white silk, with train of silver brocade trimmed with fur.
Ornaments—emeralds and diamonds; orders—Victoria and Albert,
Jubilee Commemoration Medal, Coburg and Gotha, and
Hohenwald and Grasse.’”
“By Jove!” cried Carlton, excitedly. “I say, is that really there?
Let me see it, please, for myself.”
Miss Morris handed him the paper, with her finger on the
paragraph, and picking up another, began a search down its
columns.
“You are right,” exclaimed Carlton, solemnly; “it’s she, sure
enough. And here I’ve been within two hours of her and didn’t
know it?”
Miss Morris gave another triumphant cry, as though she had
discovered a vein of gold.
“Yes, and here she is again,” she said, “in the Gentlewoman:
‘The Queen’s dress was of black, as usual, but relieved by a few
violet ribbons in the bonnet; and Princess Beatrice, who sat by her
mother’s side, showed but little trace of the anxiety caused by
Princess Ena’s accident. Princess Aline, on the front seat, in a
light-brown jacket and a becoming bonnet, gave the necessary
touch to a picture which Londoners would be glad to look upon
more often.’”
Carlton sat staring forward, with his hands on his knees, and
with his eyes open wide from excitement. He presented so unusual
an appearance of bewilderment and delight that Mrs. Downs
looked at him and at her niece for some explanation. “The young
lady seems to interest you,” said she, tentatively.

“Next to her stood the Princess

Aline of Hohenwald”

“She is the most charming creature in the world, Mrs. Downs,”

cried Carlton, “and I was going all the way to Grasse to see her,
and now it turns out that she is here in England, within a few
miles of us.” He turned and waved his hands at the passing
landscape. “Every minute brings us nearer together.”
“And you didn’t feel it in the air!” mocked Miss Morris,
laughing. “You are a pretty poor sort of a man to let a girl tell you
where to find the woman you love.”
Carlton did not answer, but stared at her very seriously and
frowned intently. “Now I have got to begin all over again and
readjust things,” he said. “We might have guessed she would be in
London, on account of this royal wedding. It is a great pity it isn’t
later in the season, when there would be more things going on and
more chances of meeting her. Now they will all be interested in
themselves, and, being extremely exclusive, no one who isn’t a
cousin to the bridegroom or an Emperor would have any chance at
all. Still, I can see her! I can look at her, and that’s something.”
“It is better than a photograph, anyway,” said Miss Morris.
“They will be either at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor, or
they will stop at Brown’s,” said Carlton. “All royalties go to
Brown’s. I don’t know why, unless it is because it is so expensive;
or maybe it is expensive because royalties go there; but, in any
event, if they are not at the palace, that is where they will be, and
that is where I shall have to go too.”
When the train drew up at Victoria Station, Carlton directed
Nolan to take his things to Brown’s Hotel, but not to unload them
until he had arrived. Then he drove with the ladies to Cox’s, and
saw them settled there. He promised to return at once to dine, and
to tell them what he had discovered in his absence. “You’ve got to
help me in this, Miss Morris,” he said, nervously. “I am beginning
to feel that I am not worthy of her.”
“Oh yes, you are!” she said, laughing; “but don’t forget that ‘it’s
not the lover who comes to woo, but the lover’s way of wooing,’
and that ‘faint heart’—and the rest of it.”
“Yes, I know,” said Carlton, doubtfully; “but it’s a bit sudden,
isn’t it?”
“Oh, I am ashamed of you! You are frightened.”
“No, not frightened, exactly,” said the painter. “I think it’s just
natural emotion.”
As Carlton turned into Albemarle Street he noticed a red carpet
stretching from the doorway of Brown’s Hotel out across the
sidewalk to a carriage, and a bareheaded man bustling about
apparently assisting several gentlemen to get into it. This and
another carriage and Nolan’s four-wheeler blocked the way; but
without waiting for them to move up, Carlton leaned out of his
hansom and called the bareheaded man to its side.
“Is the Duke of Hohenwald stopping at your hotel?” he asked.
The bareheaded man answered that he was.
“All right, Nolan,” cried Carlton. “They can take in the trunks.”
Hearing this, the bareheaded man hastened to help Carlton to
alight. “That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and those,” he
said, pointing to three muffled figures who were stepping into a
second carriage, “are his sisters, the Princesses.”
 Carlton stopped midway, with one foot on the step and the other
in the air.
“The deuce they are!” he exclaimed; “and which is—” he began,
eagerly, and then remembering himself, dropped back on the
cushions of the hansom.
He broke into the little dining-room at Cox’s in so excited a state
that two dignified old gentlemen who were eating there sat open-
mouthed in astonished disapproval. Mrs. Downs and Miss Morris
had just come down stairs.
“I have seen her!” Carlton cried, ecstatically; “only half an hour
in the town, and I’ve seen her already!”
“No, really?” exclaimed Miss Morris. “And how did she look? Is
she as beautiful as you expected?”
“Well, I can’t tell yet,” Carlton answered. “There were three of
them, and they were all muffled up, and which one of the three she
was I don’t know. She wasn’t labelled, as in the picture, but she
was there, and I saw her. The woman I love was one of that three,
and I have engaged rooms at the hotel, and this very night the
same roof shelters us both.”
 II

“The course of true love certainly runs smoothly with you,” said
Miss Morris, as they seated themselves at the table. “What is your
next move? What do you mean to do now?”
“The rest is very simple,” said Carlton. “To-morrow morning I
will go to the Row; I will be sure to find some one there who
knows all about them—where they are going, and who they are
seeing, and what engagements they may have. Then it will only be
a matter of looking up some friend in the Household or in one of
the embassies who can present me.”
“Oh,” said Miss Morris, in the tone of keenest disappointment,
“but that is such a commonplace ending! You started out so
romantically. Couldn’t you manage to meet her in a less
conventional way?”
“I am afraid not,” said Carlton. “You see, I want to meet her very
much, and to meet her very soon, and the quickest way of meeting
her, whether it’s romantic or not, isn’t a bit too quick for me.
There will be romance enough after I am presented, if I have my
way.”
But Carlton was not to have his way; for he had overlooked the
fact that it requires as many to make an introduction as a bargain,
and he had left the Duke of Hohenwald out of his considerations.
He met many people he knew in the Row the next morning; they
asked him to lunch, and brought their horses up to the rail, and he
patted the horses’ heads, and led the conversation around to the
royal wedding, and through it to the Hohenwalds. He learned that
they had attended a reception at the German Embassy on the
previous night, and it was one of the secretaries of that embassy
who informed him of their intended departure that morning on
the eleven o’clock train to Paris.
“To Paris!” cried Carlton, in consternation. “What! all of them?”
“Yes, all of them, of course. Why?” asked the young German.
But Carlton was already dodging across the tan-bark to Piccadilly
and waving his stick at a hansom.
Nolan met him at the door of Brown’s Hotel with an anxious
countenance.
“Their Royal Highnesses have gone, sir,” he said. “But I’ve
packed your trunks and sent them to the station. Shall I follow
them, sir?”
“Yes,” said Carlton. “Follow the trunks and follow the
Hohenwalds. I will come over on the Club train at four. Meet me
at the station, and tell me to what hotel they have gone. Wait; if I
miss you, you can find me at the Hôtel Continental; but if they go
straight on through Paris, you go with them, and telegraph me
here and to the Continental. Telegraph at every station, so I can
keep track of you. Have you enough money?”
“I have, sir—enough for a long trip, sir.”
“Well, you’ll need it,” said Carlton, grimly. “This is going to be a
long trip. It is twenty minutes to eleven now; you will have to
hurry. Have you paid my bill here?”
“I have, sir,” said Nolan.
“Then get off, and don’t lose sight of those people again.”
Carlton attended to several matters of business, and then
lunched with Mrs. Downs and her niece. He had grown to like
them very much, and was sorry to lose sight of them, but consoled
himself by thinking he would see them a few days at least in Paris.
He judged that he would be there for some time, as he did not
think the Princess Aline and her sisters would pass through that
city without stopping to visit the shops on the Rue de la Paix.
“All women are not princesses,” he argued, “but all princesses
are women.”
“We will be in Paris on Wednesday,” Mrs. Downs told him. “The
Orient Express leaves there twice a week, on Mondays and
Thursdays, and we have taken an apartment for next Thursday,
and will go right on to Constantinople.”
“But I thought you said you had to buy a lot of clothes there?”
Carlton expostulated.
Mrs. Downs said that they would do that on their way home.
Nolan met Carlton at the station, and told him that he had
followed the Hohenwalds to the Hôtel Meurice. “There is the
Duke, sir, and the three Princesses,” Nolan said, “and there are
two German gentlemen acting as equerries, and an English
captain, a sort of A.D.C. to the Duke, and two elderly ladies, and
eight servants. They travel very simple, sir, and their people are in
undress livery. Brown and red, sir.”
Carlton pretended not to listen to this. He had begun to doubt
but that Nolan’s zeal would lead him into some indiscretion, and