“Just so—­and, cleverer still, she held him until his death five years later.  Which death, despite the authorized report, was not natural:  the King of Valeria killed him in a sword duel in Ferida Palace on the principal street of Dornlitz.  The lady then betook herself to Paris and took up her present life of extreme respectability—­and political usefulness to our friends of Wilhelm-strasse.  In fact, I understand that she has more than made good professionally, as well as fascinated at least half a dozen Cabinet Ministers besides.

“Wilhelm-strasse?” Clarke queried.

Harleston nodded.  “She is in the German Secret Service.”

“They trust her?” Clarke marvelled.

“That is the most remarkable thing about her,” said Harleston, “so far as I know, she has never been false to the hand that paid her.”

“Which, in her position, is the cleverest thing of all!” Clarke remarked.

They passed the English Legation, a bulging, three-storied, red brick, dormer-roofed atrocity, standing a few feet in from the sidewalk; ugly as original sin, externally as repellent as the sidewalk and the narrow little drive under the porte-cochere are dirty.

“It’s a pity,” said Clarke, “that the British Legation cannot afford a man-servant to clean its front.”

“No one is presumed to arrive or leave except in carriages or motor cars,” Harleston explained. “They can push through the dirt to the entrance.”

“Why, would you believe it,” Clarke added, “the deep snow of last February lay on the walks untouched until well into the following day.  The blooming Englishmen just then began to appreciate that it had snowed the previous night.  Are they so slow on the secret-service end?”

“They have quite enough speed on that end,” Harleston responded.  “They are on the job always and ever—­also the Germans.”

“You’ve bumped into them?”

“Frequently.”

“Ever encounter the clever lady, with the assortment of husbands?”

“Once or twice.  Moreover, having known her as a little girl, and her family before her, I’ve been interested to watch her travelling—­her remarkable career.  And it has been a career, Clarke; believe me, it’s been a career.  For pure cleverness, and the appreciation of opportunities with the ability to grasp them, the devil himself can’t show anything more picturesque.  My hat’s off to her!”

“I should like to meet her,” Clarke said.

“Come to Paris, sometime when I’m there, and I’ll be delighted to present you to her.”

“Doesn’t she ever come to America?”

“I think not.  She says the Continent, and Paris in particular, is good enough for her.”

Harleston left Clarke at Dupont Circle and turned down Massachusetts
Avenue.

The broad thoroughfare was deserted, yet at the intersection of
Eighteenth Street he came upon a most singular sight.