“We will go back to America,” she said.  “I have never been so happy as at Lenox.”

“Nor I,” Mr. Sahin said softly.

“Besides,” she continued, “the times have changed since I joined the Society.  In Hungary you know how things were.  The Socialists were carrying all before them, a united solid body.  The aristocracy were forced to enter into some sort of combination against them.  We saved Austria, I am not sure that we did not save Russia.  But England is different.  The aristocracy here are a strong resident class.  They have their House of Lords, they own the land, and will own it for many years to come, their position is unassailable.  It is the worst country in Europe for us to work in.  The very climate and the dispositions of the people are inimical to intrigue.  It is Muriel Carey who brought the Society here.  It was a mistake.  The country is in no need of it.  There is no scope for it.”

“If only one could get beyond Saxe Leinitzer,” Mr. Sabin said.

She shook her head.

“Behind him,” she said, “there is only the one to whom all reference is forbidden.  And there is no man in the world who would be less likely to listen to an appeal from you—­or from me.”

“After all,” Mr. Sabin said, “though Saxe Leinitzer is our enemy, I am not sure that he can do us any harm.  If he declines to release you—­well, when the twelve months are up you are free whether he wishes it or not.  He has put me outside the pale.  But this is not, or never was, a vindictive Society.  They do not deal in assassinations.  In this country at least anything of the sort is rarely attempted.  If I were a young man with my life to live in the capitals of Europe I should be more or less a social outcast, I suppose.  But I am proof against that sort of thing.”

Lucille looked a little doubtful.

“The Prince,” she said, “is an intriguer of the old school.  I know that in Vienna he has more than once made use of more violent means than he would dare to do here.  And there is an underneath machinery very seldom used, I believe, and of which none of us who are ordinary members know anything at all, which gives him terrible powers.”

Mr. Sabin nodded grimly.

“It was worked against me in America,” he said, “but I got the best of it.  Here in England I do not believe that he would dare to use it.  If so, I think that before now it would have been aimed at Brott.  I have just read his Glasgow speech.  If he becomes Premier it will lead to something like a revolution.”

She sighed.

“Brott is a clever man, and a strong man,” she said.  “I am sorry for him, but I do not believe that he will never become Prime Minister of England.”

Mr. Sabin sipped his wine thoughtfully.

“I believe,” he said, “that intrigue is the resource of those who have lived their lives so quickly that they have found weariness.  For these things to-day interest me very little.  I am only anxious to have you back again, Lucille, to find ourselves on our way to our old home.”