“You don’t understand me at that, Shirley.  I have had a curious career.  Somewhere I inherited a strain of criminality—­you know how many ancestors a man has in ten generations.  I was a member of a poor but prominent family.  The government paid for my education in the best universities of Europe, for I was to hold a position under the Emperor, which had been held in my family for generations.  But I was ruined by the extravagances and the excesses which I learned from the rich young men whom I met.  I studied feverishly, yet was able to waste much time with the gilded fools, by my ability to learn more quickly.  The result was that I could not be contented with the small salary of my government office.  I had to keep up appearances with my companions.  So, I drifted into gambling, into sharp tricks—­then became a mercenary soldier, an officer, in the continuous revolutions of the southeastern part of Europe.  I sank deeper and at last, in one serious escapade, I managed to have myself reported dead, so as to quiet the heartaches of my mother, who believed I was killed on the battlefield.  There is the miserable story—­or all I will tell.  They caught me in Paris and a girl betrayed part of my name—­fortunately they did not hunt me up, so my mother was saved that disgrace.  Will you keep the secret now, on our understanding?”

“I give you my word for that, Warren.”  Shirley rose, putting the torn-up papers into his pockets.  “I am sorry for the past—­but you have made the present for yourself.  Good-bye.”

Warren returned to his cell and the detective to the club house.

There he found an additional cable message.  It said:  “Countess Laschlas has been dead ten months.”  It was signed like the other.

Shirley tore up the message, and blinked more than seemed necessary.

“Poor little old lady, she knows it all now.  I will not have to tell her.”

* * *

That afternoon Shirley called again at the Hotel California for Helene.

“I want you to go to a sweet, old-fashioned English tea-room, where I may tell you the rest of the story.  There will be no tango music, no cymbals, no tinkling cocktails, nor, champagne.  Can you pour real tea?”

“I am an English girl.  I have been five days without it.”

As they were ensconced at the quaint little table, he realized how wondrously blended in her was that triad of feminine essential spirits:  the eternal mother instinct, the sensuous strength of the wife-love and the wistful allurement of maiden tenderness.

“Does my great big boy wish three lumps of sugar, after his hard tasks?”

“He’ll die in the flower of immaturity if he has too many sweets in one day.”

He drew out his memorandum book, opening it to a closely-written page.

“Before the confections, I must hand in my report to the commanding officer.”

“Advance three paces to the front, and hand over the details,” and she added another lump of sugar, with a mischievous twinkle in the blue eyes.