cigarettes.
Then they re-entered the car, lit up, and glided off on the road for
Cannes. Richard had become more serious. His boyish manner and
appearance had temporarily gone. He drove, even, with less than his
usual recklessness.

"That was a fine fellow," he remarked enthusiastically, after a long
pause, "that fellow Roche!"

"And we've many more like him," Hunterleys declared. "We've men in every
part of the world doing what seems like dirty work, ill-paid work, too,
doing it partly, perhaps, because the excitement grows on them and they
love it, but always, they have to start in cold blood. The papers don't
always tell the truth, you know. There's many a death in foreign cities
you read of as a suicide, or the result of an accident, when it's really
the sacrifice of a hero for his country. It's great work, Richard."

"Makes me feel kind of ashamed," Richard muttered. "I've never done
anything but play around all my life. Anyway, those sort of things don't
come to us in our country. America's too powerful and too isolated to
need help of that description. We shouldn't have any use for politicians
of your class, or for Secret Service men."

"If you're in earnest," Hunterleys advised, "you go to Washington and
ask them about it some day. The time's coming, if it hasn't already
arrived, when your country will have to develop a different class of
politicians. You see, whether she wants it or not, she is coming into
touch, through Asia and South America, with European interests, and if
she does, she'll have to adopt their methods more or less. Poor old
Roche! There was something more he wanted to say, and if it's what I've
been expecting, your country was in it."

"I guess I'll take Fedora over for our honeymoon," Richard decided
softly. "Don't see why I shouldn't come into one of the Embassies. I'm a
bit of a hulk to go about the world doing nothing."

Hunterleys laughed quietly.

"My young friend," he said, "aren't you taking your marriage prospects a
little for granted? May I be there when you ask Augustus Nicholas Ivan
Peter, Grand Duke of Vassura, Prince of Melinkoff, cousin of His
Imperial Majesty the Czar, for the hand of his daughter in marriage!"

"So that's it, is it?" Lane murmured. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

Hunterleys shook his head. He gazed steadfastly along the road in front
of him.

"It wasn't to my interest to have it known too generally," he said, "and
I am afraid your little love af