the hunting-box in Roumania—Prince Basile's only possession—until the health that has gone snap says "Snap!" for good and all. It would mean a quiet existence for Basile: no hunting for an American bride, with doubtful chances of success, but a safe income for the rest of his life. . . .
And Prince Basile accepts. He marries Marie Delestre, who now becomes Princess Maria Chalcondylas; he sees his son, a pretty, dark-haired Roumanian lad—the very image of Basile's younger brother—whose name is to be changed from Jean Damour to Prince Basile Chalcondylas the younger. . . .
But stop, stop! Let us not hurry on too fast. I am no expert in French and Roumanian law. See here: old Jean Damour married Marie Delestre, who gave birth, a few months after the wedding, to a son registered in Paris as Jean Damour the younger. Now there is no doubt whatever that young Jean Damour is Prince Basile's son, but . . . but has the law, the French or Roumanian law, anything to say in the matter? True, Prince Basile acknowledges Jean Damour the younger as his son and gives him the right to call himself Prince Basile the younger . . . but is everything all right in the eyes of the law and of society? Maybe it is, maybe it is not: the reader cannot expect me, a mere painter of cruel portraits, to decide. . . .
But, without learning of the decision, you will understand the smile that is always provoked in Rome by the mention of Princess Maria Chalcondylas and her son Basile, a good-looking, pleasant boy whom his mother would like to marry to a Pallavicini or Odescalchi. For I have kept my cruelest touch for the end. You must know that Princess Maria has always remained a scion of the French teacher's family. She has remained middle-class: and her short, thick-set, buxom figure, now that she is growing older, lacks any trace of aristocratic languor: remember her wholesome, provincial, countrified mother. She does not speak a word of Roumanian, which is odd in a Graeco-Roumanian princess. Also, young Prince Basile, who was never at Bucharest in his life, is a true Parisian, notwithstanding his classic, oriental features. That strikes the Odescalchis and Pallavicinis—families born with proud, age-old traditions—as very peculiar. They don't know what to make of it all.
In any case, Prince Basile the younger, with his personal charm
