"I was thinking of this Petersburg affair."

"What? The everlasting Duma business?" McCutcheon drew in a long breath
of smoke.

Billy looked superior, as befitted a man who dealt in subtler matters
than mere politics. "Not at all," he said. "The disappearance of the
Princess Davorska."

Here Blake made a murmur of impatience. "Oh, Billy, don't!" he said.
"It's so frightfully banal."

McCutcheon took his cigar from his mouth. "The woman who disappeared on
the eve of her marriage?"

"Yes," broke in Blake, "disappeared on the eve of her marriage to elope
with some poet or painter, and set society by the ears. Thoroughly
modern and banal!"

The young diplomat glanced up once more.

"I don't think there's any suggestion of a lover."

"Fact is more potent than suggestion, Billy. Of course there is a lover.
Princesses don't disappear alone."

"You're a Socialist, Ned." Billy's eyes returned to his paper. "Like all
good Socialists, crammed to the neck with class bigotry. Nobody is such
an individualist as the man who advocates equality!"