a philosophic student of diet, living in general simply,
and, I may add, a gentleman of courage and good sense, as he showed in
France."

"It seems difficult, sir, to judge men. He seemed to me foolish."

"Yes; and one is apt to think not well of a man who talks much of what
he eats. He recognized me, but at once accepted my obvious desire not to
be known. He will be sure to keep my secret."

When having reached home, and it was not yet twilight--they sat down
with their pipes, Rene laid before his friend this matter of the
secretaryship.

Schmidt said: "My work is small just now, and the hours of the State
Department would release you at three. You would be at the center of
affairs, and learn much, and would find the Secretary pleasant. But,
remember, the work may bring you into relations with Carteaux."

"I have thought of that; but my mother will like this work for me. The
business she disliked."

"Then take it, if it is offered, as I am sure it will be." "He is very
quiet about Carteaux," thought Schmidt. "Something will happen soon. I
did say from the first that I would not desire to be inside of that
Jacobin's skin."

The day after, a brief note called De Courval to the Department of
State.

The modest building which then housed the Secretary and his affairs was
a small dwelling-house on High Street, No. 379, as the old numbers ran.

No mark distinguished it as the vital center of a nation's foreign
business. Rene had to ask a passer-by for the direction.

For a brief moment De Courval stood on the outer step before the open
door. A black servant was asleep on a chair within the sanded entry.

The simplicity and poverty of a young nation, just of late having set up
housekeeping, were plainly to be read in the office of the Department of
State. Two or three persons went in or came out.

Beside the step an old black woman was selling peanuts. Rene's thoughts
wandered for a moment from his Norman home to a clerk's place in the
service of a new country.

"How very strange!"--he had said so to Schmidt, and now recalled his
laughing reply: "We think we play the game of life, Rene, but the banker
Fate always wins. His dice are loaded, his cards are marked." The German
liked to puzzle him. "And yet," reflected De Courval, "I can go in or go
home." He said to himself: "Surely I am free,--and, after all, how
little it means for me! I am to translate letters." He roused the
snoring negro, and asked, "Where c