Under ordinary circumstances he would have pursued his usual search for enjoyment without restraint or reflection, either until considerations of health had set a limit to his dissipations or until a marriage, either arranged or entered into voluntarily, had caused him to “range himself.” Hull by no means approved of the course of affairs in Germany which had led to the Treaty of Versailles. He at once asked himself, “Where were you in 1918, when the retreat began? and earlier still, when it first began to be planned? Are not you, Hull, and all your kind, responsible for it?”... That was what Herr von Wenk’s words had implied. But Hull found in himself no trace of such individuality as might have saved the situation, and he dismissed these ideas from his mind. He drove to see Cara Carozza and told her of Wenk’s visit. “For God’s sake, don’t get us mixed up with your State Attorney, dear Eddie,” said she. “But ... but ... do we cheat? Are we dishonest? Are we profiteers, or climbers? We merely keep ourselves going. What are you thinking about, darling?” “Eddie, a game of cards in full swing--someone holding the bank--closed doors, and a State official looking on! That might prove a hanging matter!” “But I promised him I would bring you!” “More fool you!” she exclaimed. “You ought to have got out of it somehow. Elsie is bringing her friend to-day, and we are going to Schramm’s. Karstens has already telephoned that he will be there.” “Then Wenk would be coming anyhow, so _that’s_ all right, as it happens!” The head-waiter of Schramm’s little restaurant, recently opened in one of the residential streets and decorated throughout in most eccentric style by a modern professional, led Karstens and Wenk from the dinner-table to a box at the rear. Thence a winding stair led to a room which had no other exit and seemed to have no windows of any kind. In the middle of the room stood a fairly large table of an oval shape, but so arranged that every occupant of an arm-chair was sitting in a hollowed-out niche of his own, with the leaves of the table under his elbows on both sides. The table was formed of quaint, curiously veined Kiefersfeld marble. In the middle only was there a perfectly white oval left. Around the table, behind the players’ chairs, the floor was raised and the walls furnished with full-length reclining lounges, upon which rested crushed-strawberry-coloured cushions with black designs. A large shade of polished glass attached to a brass electrolier hung low over the table and reflected the electric light bulbs which gleamed forth from silver brackets. The walls above the strawberry-coloured cushions were inlaid with the same warm marble as that on the table. Wenk was introduced to Cara Carozza. “I could not keep the secret, Herr von Wenk. I was obliged to tell my lady friend here. Please don’t be vexed with me!” Wenk gave a slight bow, in which there was a trace of annoyance.