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“Lady Mary,” said the girl in her slow voice, “it’s worse than you feared. I don’t undertake to smooth it over. Everything that you have heard is quite true. I did go out with the man in his motor, in the evening. Sometimes it was quite dark before we returned. Mr. Meadows preferred to drive at night because he was not accustomed to the English rule of taking the left on the road, when one always takes the right in America. He was afraid he couldn’t remember the rule, so it was safer at night and there was less traffic.

“I shall not try to make the thing appear better than it was. We sometimes took long runs. Mr. Meadows liked the high roads along the east coast, where one got a view of the sea and the cold salt air. We ran prodigious distances. He had the finest motor in England, the very latest American model. I didn’t think so much about night coming on, the lights on the car were so wonderful. Mr. Meadows was an amazing driver. We made express-train time. The roads were usually clear at night and the motor was a perfect wonder. The only trouble we ever had was with the lights. Sometimes one, of them would go out. I think it was bad wiring. But there was always the sweep of the sea under the stars to look at while Mr. Meadows got the thing adjusted.”

This long, detailed, shameless speech affected the aged soldier at the window. It seemed to him immodest bravado. And he suffered in his heart, as a man old and full of memories can suffer for the damaged honor of a son he loves.

Continuing, the girl said: “Of course it isn’t true that we spent the nights touring the east coast of England in a racer. It was dark sometimes when we got in – occasionally after trouble with the lights – quite dark. We did go thundering distances.”

“With this person, alone?” The old woman spoke slowly, like one delicately probing at a wound.

“Yes,” the girl admitted. “You see, the car was a roadster; only two could go; and, besides, there was no one else. Mr. Meadows said he was alone in London, and of course I was alone. When Sir Henry asked me to go down from here I went straight off to the Ritz.”

The old woman made a slight, shivering gesture. “You should have gone to my sister in Grosvenor Square. Monte would have put you up – and looked after you.”

“The Ritz put me up very well,” the girl continued. “And I am accustomed to looking after myself. Sir Henry thought it was quite all right.”

The old woman spoke suddenly with energy and directness. “I don’t understand Henry in the least,” she said. “I was quite willing for you to go to London when he asked me for permission. But I thought he would take you to Monte’s, and certainly I had the right to believe that he would not have lent himself to – to this escapade.”

“He seemed to be very nice about it,” the girl went on. “He came in to tea with us – Mr. Meadows and me – almost every evening. And he always had something amusing to relate, some blunder of Scotland Yard or some ripping mystery. I think he found it immense fun to be Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. I loved the talk: Mr. Meadows was always interested and Sir Henry likes people to be interested.”

The old woman continued to regard the girl as one hesitatingly touches an exquisite creature frightfully mangled.

“This person – was he a gentleman?” she inquired. The girl answered immediately. “I thought about that a good deal,” she said. “He had perfect manners, quite Continental manners; but, as you say over here, Americans are so imitative one never can tell. He was not young – near fifty, I would say; very well dressed. He was from St. Paul; a London agent for some flouring mills in the Northwest. I don’t know precisely. He explained it all to Sir Henry. I think he would have been glad of a little influence – some way to meet the purchasing agents for the government. He seemed to have the American notion that he could come to London and go ahead without knowing anybody. Anyway, he was immensely interesting – and he had a ripping motor.”