torpedoed.

To Kitty, with his tired eyes and weather-bitten face, his bony,
gangling body, he had the appearance of a lazy man. Actually she knew
him to be a man of tremendous vitality and endurance. Eagles when they
roost are heavy-lidded and clumsy. She wondered if there was a corner on
the globe he had not peered into.

For thirty years he had been following two gods--Rumour and War. For
thirty years he had been the slave of cables and telegrams. Even now he
was preparing to return to the Balkans, where the great fire had started
and where there were still some threatening embers to watch.

Cutty was not well known in America; his reputation was European. He
played the game because he loved it, being comfortably fortified with
worldly goods. He was a linguist of rare attainments, specializing in
the polyglot of southeastern Europe. He came and went like cloud shadow.
His foresight was so keen he was seldom ordered to go here or there; he
was generally on the spot when the orders arrived.

He was interested in socialism and its bewildering ramifications,
but only as an analytical student. He could fit himself into any
environment, interview a prime minister in the afternoon and take
potluck that night with the anarchist who was planning to blow up the
prime minister.

Burlingame, an intimate, often exposed for Kitty's delectation the
amazing and colourful facets of Cutty's diamond-brilliant mind. Cutty
wrote authoritatively on famous gems and collected drums. He had one
of the finest collections of chrysoprase in the world. He loved
these semi-precious stones because of their unmatchable, translucent
green--like the pulp of a grape. From Burlingame Kitty had learned
that Cutty, rather indifferent to women, carried about with him the
photographs--large size--of famous professional beauties and a case
filled with polished chrysoprase. He would lay a photograph on a table
and adorn the lovely throat with astonishing necklaces and the head with
wonderful tiaras, all the while his brain at work with some intricate
political puzzle.

And he collected drums. The walls of his apartment--part of the loft of
a midtown office building--were covered with a most startling assortment
of drums: drums of war, of the dance, of the temples of the feast,
ancient and modern, some of them dreadful looking objects, as Kitty had
cause to remember.

Though Cutty had known her father and mother intimately, Kitty was a
comparative s