At this point our tête-à-tête was interrupted by the return of Madame de Stämer.
“Oh, la la!” she cried, “the Colonel must have allowed himself to become too animated this evening. He is threatened with one of his attacks and I have insisted upon his immediate retirement. He makes his apologies, but knows you will understand.”
I expressed my concern, and:
“I was unaware that Colonel Menendez’s health was impaired,” I said.
“Ah,” Madame shrugged characteristically. “Juan has travelled too much of the road of life on top speed, Mr. Knox.” She snapped her white fingers and grimaced significantly. “Excitement is bad for him.”
She wheeled her chair up beside Val Beverley, and taking the girl’s hand patted it affectionately.
“You look pale to-night, my dear,” she said. “All this bogey business is getting on your nerves, eh?”
“Oh, not at all,” declared the girl. “It is very mysterious and annoying, of course.”
“But M. Paul Harley will presently tell us what it is all about,” concluded Madame. “Yes, I trust so. We want no Cuban devils here at Cray’s Folly.”
I had hoped that she would speak further of the matter, but having thus apologized for our host’s absence, she plunged into an amusing account of Parisian society, and of the changes which five years of war had brought about. Her comments, although brilliant, were superficial, the only point I recollect being her reference to a certain Baron Bergmann, a Swedish diplomat, who, according to Madame, had the longest nose and the shortest memory in Paris, so that in the cold weather, “he even sometimes forgot to blow his nose.”
