ith the foreign nobility,"
Wanda replied quietly, though she kept her dancing eyes away from him.

Willie Dart lifted his shoulders.

"Them rummies don't qualify for finals, when you come to know 'em,
Wanda. Honest, they don't. I never got the mit of one of 'em in my
fist it didn't feel like a dead fish. There ain't a one. Say! Didn't
Red ever tell you about Helga?"

"Helga?" She shook her head. "Who is Helga?"

"The only decent piece of nobility I ever sat across the table from,"
enthusiastically. He had produced a pack of Little Soldier cigarettes
and lighted one before resuming. "She's Roosian, is Helga; a Roosian
Princess. Funny Red never told you about her. Gee, he's just like an
oyster, that kid, ain't he? Here's the straight dope on that business;
I know because I was along."

It seemed that Mr. Dart and Red had been two of a fashionable yachting
party that had gone frisking down under the Palisades and out into the
open sea. The Princess Helga, a sure enough stunner, take it from Mr.
Dart, had the men all dippy from the crack of the gun to the break of
the tape. He admitted with a sigh which absorbed a great deal of his
cigarette smoke, which after an eloquent pause made pale exit through
his nostrils, that he hadn't got over her effect on him yet.

Well, they were out beyond Sandy Hook, and the wind was blowing and the
white foam flying and the yacht beating it down the coast like the mill
tails of--like anything, you know. Suddenly there was a scream and the
Princess Helga was overboard. The yacht passed her about a half mile
before anybody thought about turning it around, they were all that
excited. But Red, say he didn't lose his head two seconds, not him.
Say, he was overboard like a shot, and he had gone down under the water
and had come up with the Princess Helga in his arms. After that--

Well, Mr. Dart rather guessed, with another sigh and subsequent
expulsion of cigarette smoke, that it was a pretty hard case. The
Princess Helga hadn't looked at another man since.

Wanda having conceded merrily that Mr. Dart's tales were intensely
interesting and marked by the ring of truth, was further informed
concerning the private affairs of Mr. Dart himself. He had taken the
notion to come out and see his old friend; his one reason in the world
for being here lay in that determination.

"I'm surprising him," he admitted complacently. "Red'll be clean
tickled to death to see me. Most