ee American Beauty roses, somewhat the worse for wear and violent
usage. Number three: a cipher message. Number four: photograph of
Madame--or Mademoiselle--de Cuthbert, de Spencer, de Lotzen. There was a
pretty plot behind these exhibits; a pretty plot, or he missed his
guess. It might concern the United States--and it might not. It would be
his duty to find out. Meanwhile, the picture stirred memories that he
had thought long dead. Also it suggested possibilities. It was some
years since they had matched their wits against each other, and the last
time she rather won out--because all the cards were hers, as well as the
_mise en scene_. And she had left--

His thought trailed off into silence; and the silence lasted so long,
and he sat so still, that the ash fell unnoticed from his cigarette; and
presently the cigarette burned itself into the tip, and to his fingers.

He tossed it into the tray and laughed quietly.

Rare days--those days of the vanished protocol and its finding! He could
almost wish that they might be again; with a different _mise en scene_,
and a different ending--and a different client for his. He was becoming
almost sentimental--and he was too old a bird for sentiment, and quite
too old at this game; which had not any sentiment about it that was not
pretence and sham. Yet it was a good game--a mighty entertaining game;
where one measured wits with the best, and took long chances, and played
for high stakes; men's lives and a nation's honour.

He picked up the photograph and regarded it thoughtfully.

"And what are to be the stakes now, I wonder," he mused. "It's another
deal of the same old cards, but who are players? If America is one,
then, my lady, we shall see who will win this time--if you're in it; and
I take it you are, else why this picture. Yet to induce you to break
your rule and cross the Atlantic, the moving consideration must be of
the utmost weight, or else it's purely a personal matter. H-u-m! Under
all the circumstances, I should say the latter is the more likely. In
which event, I may not be concerned further than to return these--" with
a wave of his hand toward the exhibits.

For a while longer he sat in silence, eyes half closed, lips a bit
compressed; a certain sternness, that was always in his countenance,
showing plainest when in reflective thought. At last, he smiled. Then he
lit another cigarette, took up the letter and the photograph, and put
them in the small safe sta