"So one would suppose. It doesn't matter. I wish you to read this." She thrust a folded newspaper page into his hand, adding: "It is only fair to you to say that I speak with the authority permissible to kinship."
"Kinship? Do you mean that you're related to me?"
"Certainly not! Be good enough to look at the paper and you will understand."
The Tyro was good enough to look, but, he reflected with regret, he wasn't clever enough to understand.
The first column was given up to a particularly atrocious murder in Harlem. The second was mainly political conjecture. In the center of the page was a totally faceless "Portrait of Cecily Wayne, Spoiled Darling of New York and Newport, whose engagement to Remsen Van Dam has Just Been Announced." Beyond, there was a dispatch about the collapse of the newest airship, and, on the far border, an interview with the owner of the paper, in which he personally declared war on most of Central America and half of Europe because a bandit who had once worked on a ranch of his had been quite properly tried and hanged for several cold-blooded killings.
"You will gain nothing by delay," said the lady impatiently.
"I give it up," confessed the Tyro, returning the paper. "You'll have to tell me."
"Even the most impenetrable stupidity could not overlook the announcement of Remsen Van Dam's engagement."
"Oh, yes; I saw that. But as I don't know Mr. Van Dam personally, it didn't interest me."
"Still, possibly you're not so extremely Western as not to know who he is. He's the sole surviving representative of one of the oldest houses in New York."