"And why not Mrs. Sydney Bamborough?" asked Steinmetz suddenly.
"Why not, indeed?" replied De Chauxville. "It is no affair of mine. A
wise man reduces his affairs to a minimum, and his interest in the
affairs of his neighbor to less. But I thought it would interest you."
"Thanks."
The tone of the big man in the arm-chair was not dry. Karl Steinmetz
knew better than to indulge in that pastime. Dryness is apt to parch the
fount of expansiveness.
De Chauxville's attention was apparently caught by an illustration in a
weekly paper lying open on the table near to him. Your shifty man likes
something to look at. He did not speak for some moments. Then he threw
the paper aside.
"Who was Sydney Bamborough, at any rate?" he asked, with a careless
assumption of a slanginess which is affected by society in its decadent
periods.
"So far as I remember," answered Steinmetz, "he was something in the
Diplomatic Service."
"Yes, but what?"
"My dear friend, you had better ask his widow when next you sit beside
her at dinner."
"How do you know that I sat beside her at dinner?"
"I did not know it," replied Steinmetz, with a quiet smile which left De
Chauxville in doubt as to whether he was very stupid or exceedingly
clever.
"She seems to be very well off," said the Frenchman.
"I am glad, as she is going to marry my master.
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