"All these men were kings--sovereigns of a mighty nation.

And how like they are to one another--in this essential quality one would say they were brothers of a great family." "Why, yes," he cried, scanning the rows of severe and subtle faces.
"It's true.

Illuminatingly true." He slid up his wrist quickly so that his hand met hers; he held it.
"How swift your perception is! And what is that quality--that quality common to them all--that quality of leadership?
Let us try to find it." Unconsciously he gripped her hand, and she returned his pressure; and they stood, as chance willed it, alone, free from circumambulant tourists, in the vast chamber, vivid with Paul Veronese's colour on wall and ceilings, with Tintoretto and Bassano' with the arrogant splendour of the battles and the pomp and circumstance of victorious armies of the proud and conquering republic, and their eyes were drawn from all this painted and riotous wonder by the long arresting frieze of portraits of serene, masterful and subtle faces.
"The common factor--that's what we want, isn't it ?" "Yes," she breathed.
And as they stood, hand in hand, the unspoken thought vibrating between them, the memory came to him of a day long ago when he had stood with another woman--a girl then--before the photographs in the window of the London Stereoscopic Company in Regent Street, and he had scanned faces of successful men.

He laughed--he could not help it--and drew his Princess closer to him.

Between the analogous then and the wonderful now, how immense a difference! As he laughed she looked swiftly up into his face.
"I know why you laugh." "No, my Princess.