t that the Princess Eiderstrom with whom you were talking?" the
solicitor asked curiously.

"A lady addressed me by mistake," Dominey explained. "She mistook me,
curiously enough, for a man who used to be called my double at Oxford.
Sigismund Devinter he was then, although I think he came into a title
later on."

"The Princess is quite a famous personage," Mr. Mangan remarked, "one of
the richest widows in Europe. Her husband was killed in a duel some six
or seven years ago."

Dominey ordered the luncheon with care, slipping into a word or two of
German once to assist the waiter, who spoke English with difficulty. His
companion smiled.

"I see that you have not forgotten your languages out there in the
wilds."

"I had no chance to," Dominey answered. "I spent five years on the
borders of German East Africa, and I traded with some of the fellows
there regularly."

"By the by," Mr. Mangan enquired, "what sort of terms are we on with the
Germans out there?"

"Excellent, I should think," was the careless reply. "I never had any
trouble."

"Of course," the lawyer continued, "this will all be new to you, but
during the last few years Englishmen have become divided into two
classes--the people who believe that the Germans wish to go to war and
crush us, and those who don't."

"Then since my return the number of the 'don'ts' has been increased by
one."

"I am amongst the doubtfuls myself," Mr. Mangan remarked. "All the same,
I can't quite see what Germany wants with such an immense army, and why
she is continually adding to her fleet."

Dominey paused for a moment to discuss the matter of a sauce with the
head waiter. He returned to the subject a few minutes later on, however.

"Of course," he pointed out, "my opinions can only come from a study of
the newspapers and from conversations with such Germans as I have met
out in Africa, but so far as her army is concerned, I should have said
that Russia and France were responsible for that, and the more powerful
it is, the less chance of any European conflagration. Russia might at
any time come to the conclusion that a war is her only salvation against
a revolution, and you know the feeling in France about Alsace-Lorraine
as well as I do. The Germans themselves say that there is more interest
in military matters and more progress being made in Russia to-day than
ever before."

"I have no doubt that you are right," agreed Mr. Mangan. "It is a matter
which is being