ny
courses and it was impossible to skip any of them. But at the earliest
possible moment she got up and left the room. Gorman closed the door
behind her and then drew his chair close to that on which von Moll
was sitting. Smith brought in coffee and liqueurs. Gorman took the
brandy bottle off the tray and set it on the table at von Moll's
elbow. Smith made an effort to recover the bottle and carry it away.
He seemed to think that von Moll had had enough to drink. Gorman was
of the same opinion, but he did not allow Smith to carry off the
brandy bottle. He thought that von Moll might be very interesting if
he took rather more than enough to drink. When Smith, after hovering
about for some time, left the room, Gorman refilled von Moll's glass.

"Silly little thing, Miss Donovan," he said, in a confidential tone.

"That is so," said von Moll.

"In Germany," said Gorman, "you put that sort of young person into her
place at once, I suppose."

"In Germany," said von Moll, "she would not exist."

He spoke with ponderous gravity. Gorman was pleased to see that he was
becoming more ponderous as he drank glass after glass of brandy.

"That cave incident, for instance," said Gorman. "I call it cheek her
trying to get into the cave when you had sentries posted outside to
stop her. By the way, what had you in the cave that you didn't want
her to see? A girl?"

Von Moll leered in a most disgusting manner. Gorman poured him out
another glass of brandy.

"You naval men," he said, "you're always the same. No girl can resist
you. But, I say, you'd really better keep it dark about that man of
yours getting his teeth knocked out. If there were any kind of inquiry
and it came out about your being in the cave with one of the island
girls----"

"There was no girl in the cave," said von Moll.

"Come now! I won't give you away. Between ourselves. We are both men
of the world."

"I have said. There was no girl."

"Oh well," said Gorman, "I suppose you were writing poetry and didn't
want to be disturbed. What was it? An ode to the Fatherland, 'Oh,
Deutschland, Deutschland!'--that kind of thing."

Von Moll strongly suspected that Gorman was laughing at him again. It
seemed almost incredible that any one would dare to do such a thing,
but Gorman was plainly an irresponsible person.

"I was," said von Moll, "carrying out the orders of the Emperor."

"The Emperor again," said Gorman. "But this time it won't do. It
really won't. Y