Then, her eyes falling absently upon the newspaper once more, the last
word of the paragraph suddenly unlocked the rusty door of memory.
_Ruvania_! She remembered the story now! There had once been a younger
brother and heir of a reigning grand-duke of Ruvania who had fallen so
headlong in love with a beautiful Englishwoman that he had renounced his
royal state and his claims to the grand ducal throne, and had married the
lady of his choice, thereafter living the life of a simple country
gentleman.
The affair had taken place a good many years prior to Diana's entry into
life, but at the time it had made such a romantic appeal to the
sentimental heart of the world at large that it had never been quite
forgotten, and had been retold in Diana's hearing on more than one
occasion.
Indeed, she recollected having once seen a newspaper containing an early
portrait of a family group composed of Duke Boris and his morganatic wife
and children. There had been two of the latter, a boy and a girl, and
Diana suddenly realised, with an irrepressible little flutter of tender
excitement, that if the fantastic story hinted at in _Tattle of the
Town_, were true, then the boy whom, years ago, she had seen pictured in
the photograph must have been actually Max himself.
And--again if it were true--how naturally and easily it explained that
little unconscious air of hauteur and authority that she had so often
observed in him--the "lordly" air upon which she had laughingly remarked
to Pobs, when describing the man who had been her companion on that
memorable railway journey, when death had drawn very near them both and
then had passed them by.
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