Instead of passing directly out of the shop, Spantz stopped a moment to give the girl some suddenly recalled instruction.

Truxton King, you may be sure, did not precede the old man into the street.

He deliberately removed his hat and waited most politely for age to go before youth, in the meantime blandly gazing upon the face of this amazing niece.
Across the square, at one of the tables, he awaited his chance and a plausible excuse for questioning the old man without giving offence.
Somewhere back in his impressionable brain there was growing a distinct hope that this beautiful young creature with the dreamy eyes was something more than a mere shopgirl.

It had occurred to him in that one brief moment of contact that she had the air, the poise of a true aristocrat.
The old man, over his huge mug of beer, was properly grateful.

He was willing to repay King for his little attention by giving him a careful history of Graustark, past, present and future, from the time of Tartar rule to the time of the so-called "American invasion." ills glowing description of the little Prince might have interested Truxton in his Lord Fauntleroy days, but just at present he was more happily engaged in speculating on the true identify of the girl in the gun-shop.