Mr. Brott looked for a moment puzzled.

“Your pseudonym,” he remarked thoughtfully, “seems very familiar to me.”

Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders.

“It is a family name,” he remarked, “but I flattered myself that it was at least uncommon.”

“Fancy, no doubt,” Mr. Brott remarked, turning to make his adieux to his hostess.

Mr. Sabin joined a fresh group of idlers under the palms.  Mr. Brott lingered over his farewells.

“Your uncle, Lady Camperdown,” he said, “is delightful.  I enjoy meeting new types, and he represents to me most perfectly the old order of French aristocracy.”

“I am glad,” Helene said, “that you found him interesting.  I felt sure you would.  In fact, I asked him especially to meet you.”

“You are the most thoughtful of hostesses,” he assured her.  “By the bye, your uncle has just told me the name by which he is known at the hotel.  Mr. Sabin!  Sabin!  It recalls something to my mind.  I cannot exactly remember what.”

She smiled upon him.  People generally forgot things when Helene smiled.

“It is an odd fancy of his to like his title so little,” she remarked.  “At heart no one is prouder of their family and antecedents.  I have heard him say, though, that an exile had better leave behind him even his name.”

“Sabin!” Mr. Brott repeated.  “Sabin!”

“It is an old family name,” she murmured.

His face suddenly cleared.  She knew that he had remembered.  But he took his leave with no further reference to it.

“Sabin!” he repeated to himself when alone in his carriage.  “That was the name of the man who was supposed to be selling plans to the German Government.  Poor Renshaw was in a terrible stew about it.  Sabin!  An uncommon name.”

He had ordered the coachman to drive to the House of Commons.  Suddenly he pulled the check-string.

“Call at Dorset House,” he directed.

* * * * *

Mr. Sabin lingered till nearly the last of the guests had gone.  Then he led Helene once more into the winter gardens.

“May I detain you for one moment’s gossip?” he asked.  “I see your carriage at the door.”

She laughed.

“It is nothing,” she declared.  “I must drive in the Park for an hour.  One sees one’s friends, and it is cool and refreshing after these heated rooms.  But at any time.  Talk to me as long as you will, and then I will drop you at the Carlton.”

“It is of Brott!” he remarked.  “Ah, I thank you, I will smoke.  Your husband’s taste in cigarettes is excellent.”

“Perhaps mine!” she laughed.

Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders.

“In either case I congratulate you.  This man Brott.  He interests me.”

“He interests every one.  Why not?  He is a great personality.”

“Politically,” Mr. Sabin said, “the gauge of his success is of course the measure of the man.  But he himself—­what manner of a man is he?”