a week or so after her return to
town she found herself mediocrally pleased at learning that he would
probably be a frequent guest at her dinner-table.

In answer to the query which her eyebrows took on at this intelligence,
Usselex explained that now and then, through stress of business, he was
in Wall Street unable to provide the individual in question with his
fullest instructions, and for that reason it was expedient for him to
have the man of an evening at the house. Immediately Eden's fancy evoked
the confidential clerk of the London stage, a withered bookkeeper, shiny
of garment, awkward of manner, round of shoulder, square of nail,
explosive with figures, and covered with warts, and on the evening in
which the secretary was to make his initial appearance she weaponed
herself with a vinaigrette.

But of the vinaigrette she had no need whatever. The secretary entered
the drawing-room with the unembarrassed step of a somnambulist. His
manner was that of one aware that the best manner consists in the
absence of any at all. His coat might have come from Piccadilly, and
when he found a seat Eden noticed that the soles of his shoes were
veneered in black. In brief, he looked well-bred and well-groomed. He
was young, twenty-three or twenty-four at most. His head was massive,
and his features were pagan in their correctness. The jaw was a
masterpiece; it gave the impression of reservoirs of interior strength,
an impression which was tempered when he spoke, for his voice was low
and unsonorous as a muffled bell. His eyes were of that green-gray which
is caught in an icicle held over grass. And in them and about his mouth
something there was that suggested that he could never be brutal and
seldom tender.

At table he made no remark worthy of record. He seemed better content to
watch Eden than to speak. He ate little and drank less, and when the
meal was done and Eden left him to her husband and the presumable cigar,
she made up her mind that he was stupid.

"He is a German," she reflected; "with such a name as Adrian Arnswald he
must be. H'm. The only German I ever liked was a Frenchman, the author
of the Reisebilder. Well, there seems to be no bilder of any kind in
him." She picked up the _Post_ and promptly lost herself in a review of
the opera. "There," she mused, "I forgot Wagner. After all, as some one
said of the Scotch, you can do a good deal with a German if you catch
him young. Mr. Arnswald does not appear to