Logotheti, who knew nothing about the details of Lady Maud’s pending divorce, could not imagine what the American was driving at, and waited for more.  Mr. Van Torp began to walk up and down, with his rather clumsy gait, digging his heels into vivid depths of the new Smyrna carpet at every step.

‘I wasn’t going to tell you,’ he said at last, ’but I may just as well.  Most of the accusations in that letter are lies.  I didn’t blow up the subway.  I know it was done on purpose, of course, but I had nothing to do with it, and any man who says I had, takes me for a fool, which you’ll probably allow I’m not.  You’re a man of business, Mr. Logotheti.  There had been a fall in Nickel, and for weeks before the explosion I’d been making a considerable personal sacrifice to steady things.  Now you know as well as I do that all big accidents are bad for the market when it’s shaky.  Do you suppose I’d have deliberately produced one just then?  Besides, I’m not a criminal.  I didn’t blow up the subway any more than I blew up the Maine to bring on the Cuban war!  The man’s a fool.’

‘I quite agree with you,’ said the Greek, listening with interest.

’Then there’s another thing.  That about poor Mrs. Moon, who’s gone out of her mind.  It’s nonsense to say I was the reason of Bamberger’s divorcing his wife.  In the first place, there are the records of the divorce, and my name was never mentioned.  I was her friend, that’s all, and Bamberger resented it—­he’s a resentful sort of man anyway.  He thought she’d marry me as soon as he got the divorce.  Well, she didn’t.  She married old Alvah Moon, who was the only man she ever cared for.  The Lord knows how it was, but that wicked old scarecrow made all the women love him, to his dying day.  I had a high regard for Mrs. Bamberger, and I suppose she was right to marry him if she liked him.  Well, she married him in too much of a hurry, and the child that was born abroad was Bamberger’s and not his, and when he found it out he sent the girl East and would never see her again, and didn’t leave her a cent when he died.  That’s the truth about that, Mr. Logotheti.  I tell you because you’ve got that letter in your pocket, and I’d rather have your good word than your bad word in business any day.’

‘Thank you,’ answered Logotheti.  ’I’m glad to know the facts in the case, though I never could see what a man’s private life can have to do with his reputation in the money market!’

’Well, it has, in some countries.  Different kinds of cats have different kinds of ways.  There’s one thing more, but it’s not in the letter, it’s in the article.  That’s about Countess Leven, and it’s the worst lie of the lot, for there’s not a better woman than she is from here to China.  I’m not at liberty to tell you anything of the matter she’s interested in and on which she consults me.  But her father is my next neighbour here, and I seem to be welcome at his house; he’s a pretty sensible man, and that makes for her, it seems to me.  As for that husband of hers, we’ve a good name in America for men like him.  We’d call him a skunk over there.  I suppose the English word is polecat, but it doesn’t say as much.  I don’t think there’s anything else I want to tell you.’