is lavish use of his money for charities and for great
industries had won him his knighthood, and while there was a certain
sniff of suspicion in certain fanatic quarters at the mention of his
name, those who knew him well had so long ago forgotten his alien
birth that they forgave it him now.

As for Marie Louise, she no longer heeded the Prussic acid of his
speech. She was as used to it as to his other little mannerisms. She
did not think of the old couple as fat and awkward. She did not
analyze their attributes or think of their features in detail. She
thought of them simply as them. But Easton was new; he brought in a
subtle whiff of the hated Germany that had done the _Lusitania_ to
death.

The fate of the ship made the dinner resemble a solemn wake. The
triumphs of the chef were but funeral baked meats. The feast was
brilliant and large and long, and it seemed criminal to see such waste
of provender when so much of the world was hungry. The talk was almost
all of the _Lusitania_ and the deep damnation of her taking off. Many
of the guests had crossed the sea in her graceful shell, and they
felt a personal loss as well as a bitterness of rage at the worst of
the German sea crimes.

Davidge was seated remotely from Marie Louise, far down the flowery
lane of the table. She could not see him at all, for the candles and
the roses. Just once she heard his voice in a lull. Its twang carried
it all the way up the alley:

"A man that would kill a passenger-ship would shoot a baby in its
cradle. When you think how long it takes to build a ship, how much
work she represents, how sweet she is when she rides out and all
that--by Gosh! there's no word mean enough for the skoundrels. There's
nothing they won't do now--absolutely nothing."

She heard no more of him, and she did not see him again that night.
She forgot him utterly. Even the little wince of distress he gave her
by his provincialism was forgotten in the anguish her foster-parents
caused her.

For Marie Louise had a strange, an odious sensation that Sir Joseph
and Lady Webling were not quite sincere in their expressions of horror
and grief over the finished epic, the _Lusitania_. It was not for lack
of language; they used the strongest words they could find. But there
was missing the subtile somewhat of intonation and gesture that actors
call sincerity. Marie Louise knew how hard it is even for a great
actor to express his simplest thoughts with conviction. N