the night
air; nor was virtue regarded like a sum of money that must not be
risked by being carried about alone after dark. It had been easy
enough to lose under the old regime.

So Marie Louise launched out in her car much as a son of the family
might have done. She drove to a little square too dingily middle class
to require a policeman. She sounded her horn three squawks and swung
open the door, and a man waiting under an appointed tree stepped from
its shadow and into the shadow of the car before it stopped. She
dropped into high speed and whisked out of the square.

"You have for me a message," said Mr. von Groener.

"Yes. Sir Joseph wants to see you."

"Me?"

"Yes--at the house. We'll go there at once if you please."

"Certainly. Delighted. But Nicky--I ought to telephone him I shall be
gone."

"Nicky is well enough to telephone?"

"Not to come to the telephone, but there is a servant. If you will
please stop somewhere. I shall be a moment only."

Marie Louise felt that she ought not to stop, but she could hardly
kidnap the man. So she drew up at a shop and von Groener left her, her
heart shaking her with a faint tremor like that of the engine of her
car.

Von Groener returned promptly, but he said: "I think we should not go
too straight to your father's house. Might be we are followed. We can
tell soon. Go in the park, please, and suddenly stop, turn round, and
I look at what cars follow."

She let him command her. She was letting everybody command her; she
had no destination, no North Star in her life. Von Groener kept her
dodging about Regent's Park till she grew angry.

"This seems rather silly, doesn't it? I am going home. Sir Joseph has
worries enough without--"

"Ah, he has worries?"

She did not answer. The eagerness in his voice did not please her. He
kept up a rain of questions, too, but she answered them all by
referring him to Sir Joseph.

At last they reached the house. As they got out, two men closed in on
the car and peered into their faces. Von Groener snapped at them, and
they fell back.

Marie Louise had taken along her latchkey. She opened the door herself
and led von Groener to Sir Joseph's room.

As she lifted her hand to knock she heard Lady Webling weeping
frantically, crying out something incoherent. Marie Louise fell back
and motioned von Groener away, but he pushed the door open and, taking
her by the elbow, thrust her forward.

Lady Webling stopped short with a