The Wheat Princess : Large Print

IT was late and the studio was already well filled when two new-comers were ushered into the room-one a woman still almost young, and still (in a kindly light) beautiful; the other a girl emphatically young, her youth riding triumphant over other qualities which in a few years would become significant.

A slight, almost portentous, hush had fallen over the room as they crossed the threshold and shook hands with their host.

In a group near the door a young man-it was Laurence Sybert, the first secretary of the American Embassy-broke off in the middle of a sentence with the ejaculation: 'Ah, the Wheat Princess!' 'Be careful, Sybert!

She will hear you,' the grey-haired consul-general, who stood at his elbow, warned.

Sybert responded with a laugh and a half-shrug; but his tones, though low, had carried, and the girl flashed upon the group a pair of vivid hazel eyes containing a half-puzzled, halfquestioning light, as though she had caught the words but not the meaning.

Her vague expression changed to one of recognition; she nodded to the two diplomats as she turned away to welcome a delegation of young lieutenants, brilliant in blue and gold and shining boots.