"I am afraid, Mrs. Van Reinberg," I answered, "that I am scarcely competent to answer such questions. Still, you must remember that your country-people have secured a firm footing in France, and it will be the King himself who will be your sponsor."
She raised her head. Her self-confidence seemed suddenly to have become re-established.
"You are right, Mr. Courage," she said. "It was absurd of me to have any doubts at all. And now let me ask you--if I may--a more personal question."
"What have you and Adèle been quarrelling about?"
"I can assure you," I said, "that there has been nothing in the nature of a quarrel between Miss Van Hoyt and myself."
"Then why," she asked, "has Adèle gone away at a moment's notice?"
"Is it really possible that you did not know?" Mrs. Van Reinberg asked. "She left just as we went in to the meeting. Mr. Stern's automobile is taking her to the depot."
"I had not the slightest idea of it," I declared. "Do you mean that she is not coming back?"
"Not at present, at any rate," Mrs. Van Reinberg declared. "You mean to tell me, Mr. Courage, that you have not quarrelled, and you did not know that she was going?"
"I had no idea of it," I said, "and I am quite certain that we have not quarrelled."
Mrs. Van Reinberg looked as though she found my statement hard to believe.
"You had better go to your room," she suggested, "and see if there is not a note for you! She must have a reason for going. She would tell me nothing; but I took it for granted that you were connected with it."
"Not to my knowledge," I assured her. "If you will excuse me, I will go and see if she has left any message."
I hurried up to my room. There was a note upon my dressing-table. I tore it hastily open. A few lines only, hastily scribbled in pencil:--
"Everything is changed since the news I told you of this evening. We must separate at once, and keep apart. Remember you have only five days. If you remain in America longer than that, your life is not safe.
"For my sake, go home! For my sake, also, burn this directly you have read it."
"What sort of a place is this, anyhow, Guest?" I asked him, looking round me with some curiosity. We were a long way from Fifth Avenue, and what I had always understood to be the centre of New York; but the bar in which we sat was quite equal to anything I had seen at the Waldorf-Astoria. The walls were panelled with dark oak, and hung with oil paintings. The bar itself was of polished walnut wood. All the appurtenances of the place, from the white linen clothes of the two servitors to the glass and silver upon the polished counter, were spotless and immaculate. In addition to the inevitable high stools, there were several little compartments screened off, after the fashion of the old-fashioned English coffee-room of the seventeenth century, and furnished with easy-chairs and lounges of the most luxurious description. In one of these we were now sitting.