No American ever married a princess of a reigning house, and no American ever will.

This law is as immovable as the law of gravitation.

Still, man is master of his dreams, and he may do as he pleases in the confines of this small circle.
Outside these temporary lapses, Carmichael was a keen, shrewd, far-sighted young man, close-lipped and observant, never forgetting faces, never forgetting benefits, loving a fight but never provoking one.

So he and the world were friends.

Diplomacy has its synonym in tact, and he was an able tactician, for all that an Irishman is generally likened to a bull in a china-shop.
"How the deuce will it end ?"--musing half aloud.