Wolfenden pushed an easy chair towards his visitor and produced some cigarettes.
“I must say,” he continued, “that I should exceedingly like to know how the thing was done.”
Felix smiled.
“That, my dear friend,” he said, “you will never know. No one will ever know the cause of Germany’s suddenly belligerent attitude, and her equally speedy climb-down! There are many pages of diplomatic history which the world will never read, and this is one of them. Come and lunch with me, Lord Wolfenden. My vow is paid and without bloodshed. I am a free man, and my promotion is assured. To-day is the happiest of my life!”
Wolfenden smiled and looked at the letter on the table before him; might it not also be the happiest day of his own life!
And it was! Punctually at four o’clock he presented himself at Grosvenor Square and was ushered into one of the smaller reception rooms. Helène came to him at once, a smile half-shy, half-apologetic upon her lips. He was conscious from the moment of her entrance of a change in her deportment towards him. She held in her hand a small locket.
“I wanted to ask you, Lord Wolfenden,” she said, drawing her fingers slowly away from his lingering clasp, “does this locket belong to you?”
He glanced at it and shook his head at once.
“I never saw it before in my life,” he declared. “I do not wear a watch chain, and I don’t possess anything of that sort.”