Suppose I bring you a New Year's card."

"That's right," agreed Jimmy. "One I can send to Dad. Do you think he
will come back this year?" wistfully.

Peter dropped on his baggy knees beside the bed and drew the little
wasted figure to him.

"I think you'll surely see him this year, old man," he said huskily.

Peter walked to the Doctors' Club. On the way he happened on little
Georgiev, the Bulgarian, and they went on together. Peter managed to
make out that Georgiev was studying English, and that he desired to know
the state of health and the abode of the Fraulein Wells. Peter evaded
the latter by the simple expedient of pretending not to understand. The
little Bulgarian watched him earnestly, his smouldering eyes not without
suspicion. There had been much talk in the Pension Schwarz about the
departure together of the three Americans. The Jew from Galicia still
raved over Harmony's beauty.

Georgiev rather hoped, by staying by Peter, to be led toward his star.
But Peter left him at the Doctors' Club, still amiable, but absolutely
obtuse to the question nearest the little spy's heart.

The club was almost deserted. The holidays had taken many of the members
out of town. Other men were taking advantage of the vacation to see the
city, or to make acquaintance again with families they had hardly seen
during the busy weeks before Christmas. The room at the top of the
stairs where the wives of the members were apt to meet for chocolate and
to exchange the addresses of dressmakers was empty; in the reading room
he found McLean. Although not a member, McLean was a sort of honorary
habitue, being allowed the privilege of the club in exchange for a
dependable willingness to play at entertainments of all sorts.

It was in Peter's mind to enlist McLean's assistance in his
difficulties. McLean knew a good many people. He was popular,
goodlooking, and in a colony where, unlike London and Paris, the great
majority were people of moderate means, he was conspicuously well
off. But he was also much younger than Peter and intolerant with the
insolence of youth. Peter was thinking hard as he took off his overcoat
and ordered beer.

The boy was in love with Harmony already; Peter had seen that, as he
saw many things. How far his love might carry him, Peter had no idea. It
seemed to him, as he sat across the reading-table and studied him over
his magazine, that McLean would resent bitterly the girl's position, and
that when he lea