“What a howling optimist you are!” Norgate observed.

“My young friend,” Hebblethwaite protested, “I am nothing of the sort.  I am simply a man of much common sense, enjoying, I may add, a few hours’ holiday.  By-the-by, Norgate, if one might venture to enquire without indiscretion, who was the remarkably charming foreign lady whom you were escorting?”

“The Baroness von Haase,” Norgate replied.  “She is an Austrian.”

Mr. Hebblethwaite sighed.  He rather posed as an admirer of the other sex.

“You young fellows,” he declared, “who travel about the world, are much to be envied.  There is an elegance about the way these foreign women dress, a care for detail in their clothes and jewellery, and a carriage which one seldom finds here.”

They had reached the far end of the field, having turned their backs, in fact, upon the polo altogether.  Norgate suddenly abandoned their conversation.

“Look here,” he said, in an altered tone, “do you feel inclined to answer a few questions?”

“For publication?” Hebblethwaite asked drily.  “You haven’t turned journalist, by any chance, have you?”

Norgate shook his head.  “Nevertheless,” he admitted, “I have changed my profession.  The fact is that I have accepted a stipend of a thousand a year and have become a German spy.”

“Good luck to you!” exclaimed Hebblethwaite, laughing softly.  “Well, fire away, then.  You shall pick the brains of a Cabinet Minister at your leisure, so long as you’ll give me a cigarette—­and present me, when we have finished, to the Baroness.  The country has no secrets from you, Norgate.  Where will you begin?”

“Well, you’ve been warned, any way,” Norgate reminded him, as he offered his cigarette case.  “Now tell me.  It is part of my job to obtain from you a statement of your opinion as to exactly how far our entente with France is binding upon us.”

Hebblethwaite cleared his throat.

“If this is for publication,” he remarked, “could you manage a photograph of myself at the head of the interview, in these clothes and with this hat?  I rather fancy myself to-day.  A pocket kodak is, of course, part of the equipment of a German spy.”

“Sorry,” Norgate regretted, “but that’s a bit out of my line.  I am the disappointed diplomatist, doing the dirty work among my late friends.  What we should like to know from Mr. Hebblethwaite, confidentially narrated to a personal friend, is whether, in the event of a war between Germany and Russia and France, England would feel it her duty to intervene?”

Hebblethwaite glanced around.  The throng of people had cleared off to watch the concluding stages of the match.

“I have a sovereign on this,” he remarked, glancing at his card.

“Which have you backed?” Norgate enquired.

“The Lancers.”

“Well, it’s any odds on the Hussars, so you’ve lost your money,” Norgate told him.