when it was discovered
that she came to lunch, and on "Vancouver" Devar when he arrived at the
Central Station that evening. Steingall's orders were imperative,
however. Not a syllable was to be uttered about the one topic
concerning which the press was hungering for information, because the
shooting affray in Market Street had now become known, and the gray car
had been dragged out of the Hudson, and the reporters were agog for the
news which was withheld at headquarters. It was then that the magic
word, _sub judice_, proved very useful. Even in outspoken America,
witnesses do not retail their evidence to all and sundry when men's
lives are at stake, and it was quickly determined to charge all five
prisoners under one and the same indictment.

Yet, for reasons never understood by the public, Balusky and Viviadi
were discharged, and Jean de Courtois was deported. Martiny was
sentenced to capital punishment, and Lamotte received a long term of
imprisonment. But these eventualities came long after Curtis and
Hermione had been remarried in strict privacy, and in the presence of a
small but select circle of friends, an occasion which supplied Aunt
Louisa with fresh oceans of talk for the delectation of society in
Bloomington, Indiana.

At the wedding breakfast, Steingall made a speech.

"Once," he said, "when the present happy event did not seem to be quite
so easy of attainment as it looks to all of us now, my friend Mr.
Curtis, playing upon a weakness of mine in the matter of literary
allusions, suggested that I should substitute Niflheim for Ewigkeit as
a simile. I didn't know what Niflheim meant, but I have ascertained
since that it is a Scandinavian word describing a region of cold and
darkness, a place, therefore, where people might easily get lost.
Well, it might have suited certain conditions I had then in my mind,
but Mr. Curtis will never go to Scandinavian mythology when he wants to
describe New York. To my thinking, it will figure in his mind as more
akin to Elysium."

Clancy led the applause with sardonic appreciation, whereupon his chief
allowed a severe eye to dwell on him, though his glance traveled
instantly to the egg-shell dome of Otto Schmidt, whose aid had been
invaluable in stilling certain qualms in the breast of authority.

"My singularly boisterous and most esteemed friend, Mr. Clancy," he
continued, "seems to be delighted by the success of that trope. I
might gladden your hearts with