The article went on with an account of Rontivogli’s engagement to “Miss Elsie Pope, one of the best known young women in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York society, the only daughter of Senator John C. Pope, reputed to be the third richest man in the Millionaires’ Club, as the Senate is called.” Then followed Rontivogli’s sweeping denial, and his denunciation of the Prussian as a “blackmailer,” a “notorious card-sharp,” a “thorough scoundrel.” When Frothingham finished he said, “Gad, what a facer for Miss Pope!” “Isn’t it, though?” replied Wallingford. “And for her father. I always blame the fathers.” “But I thought it was the mothers who hankered after European marriages,” said Frothingham. “That’s what is usually said,” Wallingford answered, “because only the mothers appear in the public part of the business. But who gives up the money for the settlements? The women ain’t a nose ahead of the men in the race of snobbishness. Poor little Elsie Pope! This ought to be a lesson to our girls against----” He paused abruptly and reddened, though Frothingham could not see him. “I almost forgot that Frothingham’s one of ’em,” he said to himself. Frothingham was grinning in the seclusion of his bedroom. “I should say so!” he exclaimed in his drawling, satirical voice. “Wonder what the Milan yarn is?” He learned in a few hours, for the Washington afternoon papers had a long Associated Press despatch from Milan. Rontivogli, heavily in debt and ruined, had been backed by a syndicate of his creditors for an American tour in search of an heiress. They had risked in the venture forty thousand lire and, within a month, an additional twenty thousand. They regarded it as a by no means desperate investment for the recovery of the very large sum which Rontivogli had got out of them before they discovered his financial plight--certainly with such a title and so much personal beauty and charm he could win the daughter of one of the multitude of rich men among those title-crazy American vulgarians. The Milan despatch set forth that the correspondent had had no difficulty in getting the facts, as “everyone here knows the story. The formation of such syndicates is said to be common in England, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy, and many of them have been successful.” “Poor Frothingham!” Wallingford thought as he read. “This is bad for his business. I fancy it’ll be many a day before I see my thousand again.” And then he delicately gave Frothingham a hint that if he needed another thousand he could have it. But Frothingham didn’t need it just then--and, it should be set down to his credit, he would have hesitated long before taking it, had he needed it. Wallingford was not wrong in thinking there had been since he met Frothingham a marked decline in his “honour as a gentleman,” and a marked rise in his “honour as a man.”