'It is a great pleasure to meet you,' Kralinsky said by way of opening the conversation. 'I have often heard of you from friends in Paris. Your little dinners at Versailles are famous all over Europe. I am sure we have many mutual friends, though you may never have heard my name.'
Mrs. Rushmore was visibly pleased, and as the way was not very wide, Margaret and Van Torp dropped behind. They soon heard the other two enumerating their acquaintances. Kralinsky was surprised at the number of Mrs. Rushmore's friends, but the Count seemed to know everybody, from all the Grand Dukes and Archdukes in Russia, Germany, and Austria, to the author of the latest successful play in Paris, and the man of science who had discovered how to cure gout by radium. Kralinsky had done the cure, seen the play, and dined with the royalties within the last few weeks. Mrs. Rushmore thought him one of the most charming men she had ever met.
In the rear Mr. Van Torp and the Primadonna were not talking; but he looked at her, she looked at him, they both looked at Kralinsky's back, and then they once more looked at each other and nodded; which meant that Van Torp had recognised the man he had [{222}] met selling rubies in New York, and that Margaret understood this.
'I'll tell you something else that's quite funny, if you don't mind dropping a little further behind,' he said.
Margaret walked still more slowly till a dozen paces separated them from the other two.
'What is it?' she asked in a low tone.
'I believe he's my old friend from whom I learned to whistle Parsifal,' answered the American. 'I'm pretty sure of it, in spite of a good many years and a beard—two things that change a man. See his walk? See how he turns his toes in? Most cow-boys walk like that.'
'How very odd that you should meet again!' Margaret was surprised, but not deeply interested by this new development.
'Well,' said Van Torp thoughtfully, 'if I'd known I was going to meet him somewhere, I'd have said this was as likely a place as any to find him in, now that I know what it was he whistled. But I admit that the other matter has more in it. I wonder what would happen if I asked him about Miss Barrack?'
'Nothing,' Margaret answered confidently. 'Nothing would happen. He has never heard of her.'