in Grosvenor Square. Monte would have put you up--and looked
after you."

"The Ritz put me up very well," the girl continued. "And I am accustomed
to looking after myself. Sir Henry thought it was quite all right."

The old woman spoke suddenly with energy and directness. "I don't
understand Henry in the least," she said. "I was quite willing for you
to go to London when he asked me for permission. But I thought he would
take you to Monte's, and certainly I had the right to believe that he
would not have lent himself to--to this escapade."

"He seemed to be very nice about it," the girl went on. "He came in to
tea with us--Mr. Meadows and me--almost every evening. And he always
had something amusing to relate, some blunder of Scotland Yard or some
ripping mystery. I think he found it immense fun to be Chief of the
Criminal Investigation Department. I loved the talk: Mr. Meadows was
always interested and Sir Henry likes people to be interested."

The old woman continued to regard the girl as one hesitatingly touches
an exquisite creature frightfully mangled.

"This person--was he a gentleman?" she inquired. The girl answered
immediately. "I thought about that a good deal," she said. "He had
perfect manners, quite Continental manners; but, as you say over here,
Americans are so imitative one never can tell. He was not young--near
fifty, I would say; very well dressed. He was from St. Paul; a London
agent for some flouring mills in the Northwest. I don't know precisely.
He explained it all to Sir Henry. I think he would have been glad of
a little influence--some way to meet the purchasing agents for the
government. He seemed to have the American notion that he could come to
London and go ahead without knowing anybody. Anyway, he was immensely
interesting--and he had a ripping motor."

The old man at the window did not move. He remained looking out over the
English country with his big, veined hands clasped behind his back. He
had left this interview to Lady Mary, as he had left most of the crucial
affairs of life to her dominant nature. But the thing touched him far
deeper than it touched the aged dowager. He had a man's faith in the
fidelity of a loved woman.

He knew how his son, somewhere in France, trusted this girl, believed
in her, as long ago in a like youth he had believed in another. He knew
also how the charm of the girl was in the young soldier's blood, and
how potent were these inscrutable mysteries. Eve