wished to demonstrate beyond the possibility of any error--that Mr.
Arthur Meadows, the pretended American from St. Paul, was in fact the
celebrated criminologist, Karl Holweg Leibnich, of Bonn, giving us the
favor of his learned presence while he signaled the German submarines
off the east coast roads with his high-powered motor lights.'"

Now there was utter silence in the drawing-room but for the low of the
Highland cattle and the singing of the birds outside.

For the first time there came a little tremor in the girl's voice.

"When Sir Henry doubted this American and asked me to go down and make
sure before he set a trap for him, I thought--I thought, if Tony could
risk his life for England, I could do that much."

At this moment a maid appeared in the doorway, the trim, immaculate,
typical English maid. "Tea is served, my lady," she said.

The tall, fine old man crossed the room and offered his arm to the girl
with the exquisite, gracious manner with which once upon a time he had
offered it to a girlish queen at Windsor.

The ancient woman rose as if she would go out before them. Then
suddenly, at the door, she stepped aside for the girl to pass, making
the long, stooping, backward curtsy of the passed Victorian era.

"After you, my dear," she said, "always!"

V. The Man in the Green Hat

"Alas, monsieur, in spite of our fine courtesies, the conception of
justice by one race must always seem outlandish to another!"

It was on the terrace of Sir Henry Marquis' villa at Cannes. The
members of the little party were in conversation over their tobacco--the
Englishman, with his brier-root pipe; the American Justice, with a
Havana cigar; and the aged Italian, with his cigarette. The last was
speaking.

He was a very old man, but he gave one the impression of incredible,
preposterous age. He was bald; he had neither eyebrows nor eyelashes. A
wiry mustache, yellow with nicotine, alone remained. Great wrinkles lay
below the eyes and along the jaw, under a skin stretched like parchment
over the bony protuberances of the face.

These things established the aspect of old age; but it was the man's
expression and manner that gave one the sense of incalculable antiquity.
The eyes seemed to look out from a window, where the man behind them had
sat watching the human race from the beginning. And his manners had
the completion of one whose experience of life is comprehensive and
finished.

"It seems strange