“Seating myself, it was not long before I was in conversation with her.”

“I see,” said Nick. “Did she know who you were?”

“Why, no.”

“Then how did she come to know?”

“That is where I was a fool. I told her.”

“On her inquiry?”

“No, confound it. A bottle of wine and a pretty woman let loose my tongue, and I babbled like an infant.”

Nick had difficulty in keeping a straight face over this frank confession and the disgusted face that accompanied it.

“Of course you didn’t know her?” asked Nick.

“No; she told me she was but recently from Chicago; that she was married; that her husband had been detained at the last moment, but would soon follow her.”