the dismayed Devar,
"told us that he cottoned to your husband, my dear, something
remarkable on board the steamer, so he sent a message by wireless to
the editor of a New York paper, asking him to let America know that one
of her citizens who had won distinction in China was homeward bound,
and the editor circulated a real nice paragraph about it. It quite
took my breath away when Mrs. Harvey, our mayor's wife--such a charming
woman, my dear, and I do hope I may have the pleasure of bringing you
to one of her delightful tea-and-bridge afternoons--said to me on
Monday: 'Surely, Mrs. Curtis, this John Delancy Curtis who is on board
the _Lusitania_ must be a son of that brother of your husband who died
in China some years ago?' and I said: 'What in the world are you
talking about, Mrs. Harvey?' so she showed me the newspaper, and I was
that taken aback that I revoked in the next hand, and the only mean
player we have in the club claimed three tricks 'without,' and went
game, being a woman herself who hasn't chick nor child, but devotes far
too much time and money to toy dogs; anyhow, I couldn't give my mind to
cards any more that day, so off I rushed home and 'phoned Horace, and
here we are, after such a flurry as you never would imagine, what
between packing in a hurry for the trip east, and missing the steamer's
arrival by nearly an hour, and turning up in the Central Hotel just in
time to hear----" Then Aunt Louisa, assuredly at no loss for words,
but remembering in a hazy way the compact made in the vestibule, found
it incumbent on her to break away from the main trend of the narrative,
so she concluded: "Just in time to hear things being said about our
nephew which we felt bound to deny, both for his sake and our own."

Curtis had favored Devar with a questioning scowl when he learnt how
his advent had been heralded in the press, but Devar merely vouchsafed
a brazen wink, and in the next breath Hermione herself became his
unconscious and most persuasive advocate.

"I have been bothering my brains to discover when or where I had seen
Mr. Curtis's name before--before we met to-night," she said, smiling at
the ridiculous vagueness of her own phrase. "Now I remember. I used
to read the newspaper reports about every ship that arrived, and I
noticed that identical paragraph."

"Thank you, Lady Hermione," cried Devar, crowing inwardly over his
friend's discomfiture. "John D. will begin to believe soon what I have
bee