"You remember always," she murmured.
Wingate, who was standing up until his guests were seated, flashed an answering smile. At his right hand was a French princess, who was Josephine's godmother; at his left Sarah, lately glorified to married estate. An English Cabinet Minister and an American diplomatist, with their wives, and Jimmy, completed the party. No one noticed the two men at the little table near the wall.
"You are a magician," the Princess whispered to Wingate. "Never could I have believed that my dear Josephine would become young again. They speak of her already as the most beautiful woman on the Riviera, and with reason. I am proud of my godchild. And they tell me that you," she went on, "have done great things in the world of finance, as well as in the underworld of politics. Those are worlds, alas!" she added with a little sigh, "of which I know nothing."
"They are worlds," Wingate replied, "which exist more on paper than anywhere else."
"Is it true, Wingate," the Cabinet Minister asked him curiously, "that it was you who broke the British and Imperial Granaries?"
"If there is such a thing," Wingate answered with a smile, "as a world of underground politics—the Princess herself coined the phrase—then I think I may claim that what passed between me and the directors of that company is secret history. As a matter of fact, though, I think I was to some extent responsible for smashing that horrible syndicate."
"It ought never to have been allowed to flourish," the Minister pronounced. "Its charter was cunningly devised to cheat our laws, and it succeeded. After all, though, it is good to think that the days when such an institution could live for a moment have passed. Labour and the reconstructionists have joined hands in sane legislation. It is my belief that for the next few decades, at any rate, the British Empire and America—for the two move now hand in hand—are entering upon a period of world supremacy."
The American diplomatist had something to say.
"For that," he declared, "we may be thankful to those responsible for the destruction of militarism. Industrial triumphs were never possible under its shadow. An era of prosperity will also be an era of peace."
"For how long, I wonder?" the Princess whispered "Human nature has shown remarkably little change through all the ages. Don't you think that some day soon one person will have what another covets, and the world will rock again to the clash of arms?"