“I think it depends on the prince.  If he finds that you haven’t torn down his fences while you had full sway, he’ll not be obliged to go on with the game.  He was merely protecting interests that absence endangered.  Now that he’s here, and if all is smooth and undisturbed—­or, in other words, if you have failed in your merciless design to put a few permanent and unhealable dents in the fair lady’s heart—­he will certainly discharge his cohorts and enjoy very smooth seas for the rest of the trip.  If you have disfigured her tender heart by trying to break into it, as a safe-blower gets into those large, steel things we call safety deposit vaults—­where other men keep things they don’t care to lose—­I must say that his satanic majesty will be to pay.  Do you think you have made any perceptible dents, or do you think the safe is as strong and as impregnable as it was when you began using chisels and dynamite on it six weeks ago?”

“I can’t say that I enjoy the simile, but I’m conceited enough to think it is not as free from dents as it was when I began.  I’m not quite sure about it, but I believe with a little more time and security against interference I might have—­er—­have—­’’

“Got away with the swag, as Turk would say.  Well, it’s this way.  If the prince investigates and finds that you were frightened away just in time to prevent wholesale looting, you’ll have to do some expert dodging to escape the consequences of the crime.  He’ll have the duke and the count and a few others do nothing but get up surprise parties for you.”

“That’s it, Dickey.  That’s what I’m afraid of—­the surprise parties.  He’s afraid of me, or he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of having me watched.  They’ve got something brewing or they wouldn’t have been so quiet for the past two weeks.  Courant is gone and—­”

“How do you know Courant isn’t here?”

“Turk says he has disappeared.”

“Turk doesn’t know everything.  That fellow may have a score of disguises.  These French detectives are great on false whiskers and dramatic possibilities.  The chances are that he has been watching you night and day, and I’ll bet my head, if he has, he’s been able to tell Ugo more about your affair with Miss Garrison than you know yourself, my boy.”

They turned to retrace their steps, Phil gloomily surveying the big, partially-lighted house across the way.  A man met them and made room for them to pass on the narrow walk.  He was a jaunty, well-dressed young fellow and the others would have observed nothing peculiar about him had they not caught him looking intently toward the house which was of such interest to them.  As he passed them he peered closely at their faces and so strange was his manner that both involuntarily turned their heads to look after him.  As is usually the case, he also turned to look at them.

“I saw that fello\v in the hotel,” said Savage.

Five minutes later they met Turk and, before they could utter a word of protest, he was leading them into the Rue du Prince Royal.