‘Well?’ Mr. Van Torp uttered the monosyllable as he sat down in his own chair and pointed to a much less comfortable one, which Logotheti took.

‘There’s an article about you,’ said the latter, producing a paper.

‘I’ve read it,’ answered Mr. Van Torp in a tone of stony indifference.

‘I thought that was likely.  Do you take the paper?’

‘No.  Do you?’

‘No, it was sent to me,’ Logotheti answered.  ’Did you happen to glance at the address on the wrapper of the one that came to you?’

‘My valet opens all the papers and irons them.’

Mr. Van Torp looked very bored as he said this, and he stared stonily at the pink and green waistcoat which his visitor’s unfastened coat exposed to view.  Hundreds of little gold beads were sewn upon it at the intersections of the pattern.  It was a marvellous creation.

‘I had seen the handwriting on the one addressed to me before,’ Logotheti said.

‘Oh, you had, had you?’

Mr. Van Torp asked the question in a dull tone without the slightest apparent interest in the answer.

‘Yes,’ Logotheti replied, not paying any attention to his host’s indifference.  ’I received an anonymous letter last winter, and the writing of the address was the same.’

‘It was, was it?’

The millionaire’s tone did not change in the least, and he continued to admire the waistcoat.  His manner might have disconcerted a person of less assurance than the Greek, but in the matter of nerves the two financiers were well matched.

‘Yes,’ Logotheti answered, ’and the anonymous letter was about you, and contained some of the stories that are printed in this article.’

‘Oh, it did, did it?’

’Yes.  There was an account of your interview with the Primadonna at a hotel in New York.  I remember that particularly well.’

‘Oh, you do, do you?’

’Yes.  The identity of the handwriting and the similarity of the wording make it look as if the article and the letter had been written by the same person.’

‘Well, suppose they were—­I don’t see anything funny about that.’

Thereupon Mr. Van Torp turned at last from the contemplation of the waistcoat and looked out of the bay-window at the distant trees, as if he were excessively weary of Logotheti’s talk.

‘It occurred to me,’ said the latter, ’that you might like to stop any further allusions to Miss Donne, and that if you happened to recognize the handwriting you might be able to do so effectually.’

‘There’s nothing against Madame Cordova in the article,’ answered Mr. Van Torp, and his aggressive blue eyes turned sharply to his visitor’s almond-shaped brown ones.  ‘You can’t say there’s a word against her.’

‘There may be in the next one,’ suggested Logotheti, meeting the look without emotion.  ’When people send anonymous letters about broadcast to injure men like you and me, they are not likely to stick at such a matter as a woman’s reputation.’