"Oh, no, I am a faithful soul. Say three years and a third to each attack." "You talk at times singularly like an American for one who left here at the age of two." "Remember that my family went with me. Moreover, Mary and I always talked English together--American if you like. She was intensely proud of being an American. We read all the American novels, as I told you. They are an education in the idiom, permanent and passing. Moreover, I was always meeting Americans." "Were you? Well, the greater number of them must be in New York at the present moment. No doubt they would be glad to relieve your loneliness." "I am not in the least lonely and I have not the least desire to see any of them. Only one thing would induce me--if I thought it would be possible to raise a large amount of money for the women and children of Austria." "Ah! You would take the risk, then?" "Risk? They were the most casual acquaintances. They probably have forgotten me long since. I had not left Hungary for a year before the war, and one rarely meets an American in Pesth Society--two or three other American women had married Hungarians, but they preferred Vienna and I preferred Europeans. I knew them only slightly. . . . Moreover, there are many Zattianys. It is an immense connection." "You mean you believe you would be safe," he caught her up. "_Mon dieu_! You make me feel as if I were on the stand. But yes, quite safe." "And you really believe that any one could ever forget you?" "I am not as vain as you seem to think." "You have every right to be. Suppose--suppose that something should occur to rouse the suspicions of the Countess Zattiany's old friends and they should start investigations in Vienna?" "They would not see her--nor their emissaries. Dr. Steinach's sanitarium is inviolate." "Steinach--Steinach--where have I heard that name lately?" Her eyes flew open, but she lowered the lids immediately. Her voice shook slightly as she replied: "He is a very great doctor. He will keep poor Mary's secret as long as she lives and nobody in Vienna would doubt his word. Investigations would be useless." "She is there then? I suppose you mean that she is dying of an incurable disease or has lost her mind. But do not imagine that I care to pry further into that. I never had the least idea that you had---- Oh, I don't know what to believe! . . . Won't you ever tell me?" "I wonder! No, I think not! No! No!" "There is something then?" "Do you know why you still harp on that absurd idea that I am what I am and still am not? Do you not know what it is--the simple explanation?" "No, I do not."