"Remember that a newspaper man---- However, I'll speak only for myself." He thrust his hands into his pockets and tried to summon his saturnine expression, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that he looked merely wistful and boyish and that this highly accomplished woman of the world was laughing at him. "For my own sake I want to know," he blurted out. "I haven't an idea why I suspect you, and it is possible that you are what you say you are. Certainly you are far too clever not to have an alibi it would be difficult to puncture. But I _sensed_ something that first night . . . something beyond the fact that you were a European and did a curious thing--which, however, I understood immediately. . . . It was something more. . . . I don't think I can put it into words . . . you were there, and yet you were not there . . . somebody else seemed to be looking out of your eyes . . . even when Dinwiddie thought he had explained the matter. . . ." "You mean when he assumed that I was the illegitimate daughter of Mary Zattiany. Poor Mary! She always wanted a daughter--that is, when her own youth was over. That is the reason she was so fond of me. Do you think I am Mary's bastard?" "I did--I don't now. . . . I don't know what to think. . . . I have never lost that first impression--wholly." She stirred slightly. Was it a movement of uneasiness? He was horribly embarrassed, but determined to hold his ground, and he kept his eyes on her face, which retained its expression of mocking amusement. "But you think I am an adventuress of some sort." "The word does not apply to you. There is no question that you are a great lady." "Of course I might be an actress," she said coolly. "I may have been on the stage in Vienna when the war broke out, become accidentally associated with Countess Zattiany, won her confidence, owing to the extraordinary resemblance--our blood may have met and mingled in Cro-Magnon days--stolen her papers, led her to talk of her youth--of course every one knew Countess Zattiany's record in European Society--forged her power of attorney with the aid of an infatuated clerk, poisoned her--and here I am!" He laughed. "Bully plot for the movies. That is a new angle, as they say. I hadn't thought of it. And a good actress can put over anything. I once heard a movie queen, who was the best young aristocrat, in looks and manner, I ever saw on the screen, say to her director--repeating a telephone conversation--'I says and he says and then I seen he hadn't heard me.'" For the first time since he had known her she threw back her head and laughed heartily. Even her eyes looked young and her laugh was musical and thrilling. Then she demanded: "And do you think I am an actress--who got an education somehow?" "I think you are an actress, but not that sort. Your imaginative flight leaves me cold."