red.

"I am not very keen on restaurants for a week or two," he said
doubtfully. "Besides, I had half promised to be at the club."

"Not to-day," Karschoff insisted. "To-day let us listen to the call of
the world. Woman is at her loveliest in the spring. The Ritz Restaurant
will look like a bouquet of flowers. Perhaps 'One for you and one for
me.' At any rate, one is sure of an omelette one can eat."

The two men turned together towards Piccadilly.

CHAPTER IV

Luncheon at the Ritz was an almost unexpectedly pleasant meal. The two
men sat at a table near the door and exchanged greetings with many
acquaintances. Karschoff, who was in an unusually loquacious frame of
mind, pointed out many of the habitues of the place to his companion.

"I am become a club and restaurant lounger in my old age," he declared,
a little bitterly. "Almost a boulevardier. Still, what else is there for
a man without a country to do?"

"You know everybody," Nigel replied, without reference to his
companion's lament. "Tell me who the woman is who has just entered?"

Karschoff glanced in the direction indicated, and for a moment his
somewhat saturnine expression changed. A smile played upon his lips, his
eyes seemed to rest upon the figure of the girl half turned away from
them with interest, almost with pleasure. She was of an unusual type,
tall and dark, dressed in black with the simplicity of a nun, with only
a little gleam of white at her throat. Her hair--so much of it as showed
under her flower-garlanded hat--was as black as jet, and yet, where she
stood in the full glare of the sunlight, the burnish of it was almost
wine-coloured. Her cheeks were pale, her expression thoughtful. Her
eyes, rather heavily lidded, were a deep shade of violet. Her mouth was
unexpectedly soft and red.

"Ah, my friend, no wonder you ask!" Karschoff declared with enthusiasm.
"That is a woman whom you must know."

"Tell me her name," Nigel persisted with growing impatience.

"Her name," Karschoff replied, "is Naida Karetsky. She is the daughter
of the man who will probably be the next President of the Russian
Republic. You see, I can speak those words without a tremor. Her father
at present represents the shipping interests of Russia and England. He
is one of the authorised consuls."

"Is he of the party?"

Karschoff scrutinised the approaching figures through his eyeglass and
nodded.

"Her father is the dark, broad-shouldered man with the s