never really safe in
trifling with an Englishman's sense of humour. "Dear monsieur
Martin:--It is too sweet of you to remember your promise to ask me to
dine the first time you came to Paris. Since you leave it to me, shall
we say the Ritz, at half past seven? In case your memory for faces is
poor--it has been a long time since we met, hasn't it?--I shall be
wearing the conventional fast black with my very best ingenue
expression; and my feather fan will be flame-coloured.

"Always to you--

"Athenais Reneaux."

Now that sounded more like ...

Only it was a bit debilitating to contemplate, as the mirror insisted
one must, the shortcomings of machine-made evening clothes, whose
obviously exorbitant cost as a post-War luxury did nothing to make
amends for their utter want of personal feeling. For one needs sympathy
in a dress-coat quite as much as cloth.

Still, it was a tolerably personable figure that suffered Lanyard's
critical inspection. And an emergency is an emergency. Those readily
serviceable clothes were of more value than the most superbly tailored
garments that could possibly have been made up for him in any
reasonable length of time. For to-morrow night it might, and as Lanyard
held surely would, be too late to accomplish what he hoped to
accomplish to-night, and for whose accomplishment evening dress was
indispensable. Since Wertheimer had passed the word on, the name of the
Comte de Lorgnes would be published to the world in the morning papers,
and by evening the birds, if they were wise, would be in full flight.
Whereas to-night, while still that poor mutilated body lay nameless in
the Morgue...

Mademoiselle Athenais Reneaux lived up in most gratifying fashion to
the tone of her note. In the very beginning she demonstrated excellent
discretion by failing to be on hand and eager when Lanyard strolled
into the Ritz on the minute of their appointment. To the contrary she
was all of twenty-five minutes late; a circumstance so consistently
feminine as to rob their meeting of any taint of the extraordinary;
they might have been simple sweethearts meeting to dine remote from
jealous or censorious eyes, rather than one of the most useful Parisian
agents of the British Secret Service under orders to put her talents at
the disposition of a man who was to her nothing more than an everyday
name.

She swept spiritedly into the lounge of the Ritz, a tall, fair girl,
very good-looking indeed and brilliantly c