When the uninformed chauffeur drove the car with a grand sweep under the marquise of the ostentatious pale yellow block in the Avenue Hoche where Irene Wheeler had had her flat, Mr. Ingram and a police-agent were standing on the steps, but nobody else was near.  Little Mr. Ingram came forward anxiously, his eyes humid, and his face drawn with pain and distress.

“We know,” said Lois.  “I met Mr. Cardow at Longchamps.  He knew.”

Mr. Ingram’s pain and distress seemed to increase.

He said, after a moment: 

“Alfred will drive you home, dear, at once. Alfred, vous seriez gentil de reconduire Mademoiselle a la rue d’Athenes." He had the air of supplicating the amiable chauffeur.  “Mr. Cannon, I particularly want a few words with you.”

“But, father, I must come in!” said Lois.  “I must——­”

“You will go home immediately.  Please, please do not add to my difficulties.  I shall come home myself as quickly as possible.  You can do nothing here.  The seals have been affixed.”

Lois raised her chin in silence.

Then Mr. Ingram turned to the police-agent, spoke to him in French, and pointed to the car persuasively; and the police-agent permissively nodded.  The chauffeur, with an affectation of detachment worthy of the greatest days of valetry, drove off, leaving George behind.  Mr. Ingram descended the steps.

“I think, perhaps, we might go to a cafe,” said he in a tone which dispersed George’s fear of a discussion as to the propriety of the unchaperoned visit to the races.

They sat down on the terrasse of a large cafe near the Place des Ternes, a few hundred yards away from the Avenue Hoche.  The cafe was nearly empty, citizens being either in the Bois or on the main boulevards.  Mr. Ingram sadly ordered bocks.  The waiter, flapping his long apron, called out in a loud voice as he went within:  “Deux blonds, deux.” George supplied cigarettes.

“Mr. Cannon,” began Mr. Ingram, “it is advisable for me to tell you a most marvellous and painful story.  I have only just heard it.  It has overwhelmed me, but I must do my duty.”  He paused.

“Certainly,” said George self-consciously, not knowing what to say.  He nearly blushed as, in an attempt to seem at ease, he gazed negligently round at the rows of chairs and marble tables, and at the sparse traffic of the somnolent Place.

Mr. Ingram proceeded.

“When I first knew Irene Wheeler she was an art student here.  So was I. But I was already married, of course, and older than she.  Exactly what her age was I should not care to say.  I can, however, say quite truthfully that her appearance has scarcely altered in those nineteen years.  She always affirmed that her relatives, in Indianapolis, were wealthy—­or at least had money, but that they were very mean with her.  She lived in the simplest way.  As for me, I had to give up art for something less capricious, but capricious enough in all conscience.  Miss Wheeler went to America and was away for some time—­a year or two.  When she came back to Paris she told us that she had made peace with her people, and that her uncle, whom for present purposes I will call Mr. X, a very celebrated railway magnate of Indianapolis, had adopted her.  Her new manner of life amply confirmed these statements.”