The two men walked a few steps further in unbroken silence. Then the
Count raised his hat.
"Mr. Lutchester," he said, "yours is the reply of an honourable enemy. I might have trusted you, but Sonia is half of my life. I offer you my thanks."
He strolled away, and Lutchester rejoined his young friend.
"The lion and the lamb seem to have parted safely!" the latter exclaimed. "Now sit by my side and I will show you interesting things. Those four irreproachable young men over there in tennis flannels are all from the German Embassy. The two elder ones behind are Austrians. All those women are the wives of Senators who sympathise with Germany. Their husbands look like it, don't they? To-day they have an addition to their ranks—the thin, elderly man there, whose clothes were evidently made in London. That's Senator Hastings. He is a personal friend of the President. Jove, what a beautiful girl with Mrs. Hastings!"
"That," Lutchester told him, "is the young lady to whom you have just sent a card of invitation for to-night."
"Then here's hoping that she comes," Philip Downing observed, finishing his glass of mint julep. "Is she a pal of yours?"
"Yes, I know her," Lutchester admitted.
"Let's go and butt in, then," Downing suggested. "I love breaking up these little gatherings. You'll see them all stiffen when we come near. I hope they haven't got hold of Hastings, though."
The two men rose to their feet and crossed the lawn. Fischer, who had suddenly appeared in the background, whispered something in Mrs. Hastings' ear. She swung around to Pamela, a second too late. Pamela, with a word of excuse to the young man with whom she was talking, stepped away from the circle and held out her hand to Lutchester.
"So you have really come to Washington!" she exclaimed.