brought it grinned and told everybody an old man was
smitten on me; and Ben, the black-face man, said, 'I'll break his
face,' but I said I wouldn't see him.

"Well, when I was dressed and leaving the theater with the black-face
man, you know, Sir Joseph was outside. He stopped me and said: 'My
child! My child!' and the tears ran down his face. I stopped, of
course, and said, 'What's the matter now?' And he said, 'Would you
come with me?' and I said, 'Not in a thousand years, old Creepo
Christmas!' And he said: 'My poor wife is in the carriage at the curb.
She wants to speak to you.' And then of course I had to go, and she
reached out and dragged me in and wept all over me. I thought they
were both crazy, but finally they explained, and they asked me to go
to their hotel with them. So I told Ben to be on his way, and I went.

"Well, they asked me a lot of questions, and I told them a little--not
everything, but enough, Heaven knows. And they begged me to be their
daughter. I thought it would be pretty stupid, but they said they
couldn't stand the thought of their child's image going about as I
was, and I wasn't so stuck on the job myself--odd, how the old
language comes back, isn't it? I haven't heard any of it for so long
I'd almost forgotten it." She passed her handkerchief across her lips
as if to rub away a bad taste. It left the taste of tears. She sighed:
"Well, they adopted me, and I learned to love them. And--and that's
all."

"And you learned to love their native country, too, I fancy."

"At first I did like Germany pretty well. They were crazy about us in
Berlin. I got my first big money and notices and attention there. You
can imagine it went to my head. But then I came to England and tried
to be as English as I could, so as not to be conspicuous. I never
wanted to be conspicuous off the stage--or on it, for that matter. I
even took lessons from the man who had the sign up, you remember,
'Americans taught to speak English!' I always had a gift for foreign
languages, and I got to thinking in English, too."

"One moment, please. Did you say 'Americans taught?' Americans?"

"Yes."

"You're not American?"

"Why, of course!"

"Damned stupid of me!"

Verrinder frowned. This complicated matters. He had cornered her, only
to have her abscond into neutral territory. He had known that Marie
Louise was an adopted child, but had not suspected her Americanism.
This required a bit of thinking. While he studied