In the flood of light the carriage lost its air of mystery, and Blake, who had a fancy for the mysterious, dropped back into his corner and took out his cigar-case with a little feeling of regret.  In traversing the world’s pathways, beaten or wild, he always made a point of seeing the story behind the circumstance; and, had he realized it, a common instinct bound him in a triangular link to the peering, winking lamps, and to the Russian boy lying unsociably wrapped in his heavy coat.  All three had an eye for an adventure.

But the lights were up, and the curtain down—­it was a theatre between the acts; and presently the calculating voice of McCutcheon broke forth again, as he relapsed into his original attitude, coiling up his long limbs and nursing his cigar to a glow.

“I can’t get over that ‘four jacks,’” he said.  “To think I could have been funked into seeing Billy at fifty!”

Blake laughed. “’Twas the eye-glass did it, Mac!  A man shouldn’t be allowed to play poker with an eye-glass; it’s taking an undue advantage.”

McCutcheon smiled his dry smile and shot a quizzical glance at the neat young Englishman, who had become absorbed in one of his papers.

“Solid face, Blake!” he agreed.  “Nothing so fine as an eye-glass for sheer bluff.  What would Billy be without one?  Well, perhaps we won’t say.  But with it you have no use for doubt—­he’s a diplomat all the time.”

The young man named Billy showed no irritation.  With the composure which he wore as a garment, he went on with his occupation.

For a time McCutcheon bore this aloofness, then he opened a new attack.  “What are you reading, my son?  Makes a man sort of want his breakfast to see that hungry look in your eyes.  Share the provender, won’t you?”

Billy looked up sedately.

“You fellows think my life’s a game,” he said.  “But I tell you it takes some doing to keep in touch with things.”

Blake laughed chaffingly.  “And the illustrated weekly papers are an excellent substitute for Blue-books?”

Billy remained undisturbed.  “It’s all very well to scoff, but one may get a side-light anywhere.  In diplomacy nothing’s too insignificant to notice.”

Again Blake laughed.  “The principle on which it offers you a living?”

“Oh, come,” said Billy, “that’s rather rough!  You know very well what I mean.  ’Tisn’t always in the serious reports you get the color of a fact, just as the gossip of a dinner-table is often more enlightening than a cabinet council.”

“Apropos?”

“I was thinking of this Petersburg affair.”

“What?  The everlasting Duma business?” McCutcheon drew in a long breath of smoke.

Billy looked superior, as befitted a man who dealt in subtler matters than mere politics.  “Not at all,” he said.  “The disappearance of the Princess Davorska.”

Here Blake made a murmur of impatience.  “Oh, Billy, don’t!” he said.  “It’s so frightfully banal.”