There was something in his companion's manner that put him rather on
his guard; he remembered smoking after dinner not more than three or
four months before in the house of one of the most prominent German
bankers in New York, and listening to this man, who had expressed
himself in a way that might have suggested somewhat pro-German
sympathies. Edestone had at the time attributed this to a
consideration for their host and to the fact that the German
Ambassador was present; but he recalled that, although the speaker was
most violent in his protestations of neutrality, someone had suggested
at the time that he was of a German family, his father having been
born in Hesse-Darmstadt. He was a man of wealth, with establishments
in New York and Newport, at both of which places Edestone had been
entertained. His loud and hearty manner stamped him as a typical
American, but his large frame, handsome face, and military bearing
showed his Teutonic origin.

"You surprise me Rebener." Edestone's eyes twinkled slightly at these
recollections. "I should have supposed, if you had anything of the
kind to sell, that it would be to your friend, Count Bernstoff.
However," he laid his hand on the other's arm, "it's an agreeable
surprise to run across a fellow-countryman, no matter what the cause.
Are you going my way?"

"No," Rebener told him, he had an appointment on hand with one of the
bureau chiefs in the Ordnance Department.

"Well then suppose you dine with me tonight," suggested Edestone. "I
am stopping at Claridge's and shall be awfully glad if you can come. I
am entirely alone in London, you see; my cronies, I find, are all dead