ow named Steingall. Shall I bring them here? It will
be pleasanter than being stared at in a crowded supper room."

She was surprised, but the relief in her tone was unmistakable.

"I don't want any supper," she said. "I shall be glad to meet your
relatives, of course, though----"

"Though you think I might have mentioned them sooner? Well, the
strangest part of the business is that they should be in New York at
all. I haven't the remotest idea as to why they are here, or how they
dropped across me. But isn't it a rather fortunate thing? They may
prove useful in a hundred ways."

"Please don't keep them waiting. What does the detective want?"

"Every syllable you can tell him about Count Vassilan."

"I hardly know the man at all. I always avoided him in Paris."

"You may be astonished by the number of facts you will produce when
Steingall questions you. And, I had better warn you that my uncle is
even now consulting the head-waiter about a wedding feast. He has
adopted you without reservation on my poor description."

His frankly admiring look brought a blush to her cheeks; but she only
laughed a little constrainedly, and murmured that she would try to be
as complacent as the occasion demanded. Events were certainly in
league to lend her wedding night a remarkably close semblance to the
real thing. And as Curtis descended to the foyer to summon their
waiting guests he decided then and there not to mar the festivities by
any explanations concerning Jean de Courtois's second time on earth.
Steingall had practically settled the question by confining the
Frenchman to his room for the remainder of the night. Why interfere
with an admirable arrangement? Let the wretched intriguer be forgotten
till the morrow, at any rate!

CHAPTER IX

ELEVEN O'CLOCK

"In multitude of counselors there is safety," says the Book of
Proverbs. Usually, the philosophy attributed to Solomon exhibits a
soundness of judgment which is unrivaled, so it is reasonable to assume
that in Hebrew gnomic thought four do not constitute a multitude,
because four people agreed with Curtis that there was not the slightest
need to mention Jean de Courtois to Hermione that evening, and five
people were wrong, though in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they
might have been right. Hermione herself admitted afterwards that she
would have believed Curtis implicitly had he explained the
circumstances which accounted for his undoubted