"But my dear!" I protested. "Who are his family? Surely you know that?" "That's simple enough!" said Abby. "His mother was a Miss Winton, as you know--the daughter of the American consul here at San Remo. His father was the holder of one of our very oldest titles. There was a brother who was killed in Africa in a game accident--an older twin, I believe. Really, my dear, I don't think there is the faintest mystery about Sandy, as we call him. No money--land-poor with an old rat's nest of a castle back in the hills, and not fit, they say, for human habitation; a Harvard education, expensive tastes and an aptitude for recouping at the tables here--a clever amateur of the arts and a dear fellow. And that's all. Why, what more is there to know about any unattached young male?" "Poverty would be no crime in this case," I observed. "Though I think that if he is so hard up he ought to go to work." "He's not hard up, except for a duke!" laughed Abby. "At least he always seems to have enough to get by with. There's no talk of debts, he doesn't keep a car, and lives extremely modestly." "And you have never heard anything peculiar about him?" I persisted. "Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as to say that!" said Abby, "for it was very vague. About a year ago I heard that the secret service was supposed to be shadowing him. We were staying at the same country house, the Welch-Finleys, and he left utterly without warning, and it gave rise to some talk. People remembered about his brother, and, of course, no one has ever understood quite how he died. They were devoted, however--mad about each other; I know it for a fact. And Sandy often speaks of him most affectionately. "Still it isn't usual for the secret service to shadow people--the best people, is it?" I protested. "Oh, quite!" said Abby. "At least in Europe it is. Nowadays everybody is suspected of being a Prussian or an Englishman or a Frenchman or an Italian, according as they proclaim themselves to be the other. You see, everybody is in the secret service of at least one nation, or say they are, and to be overlooked by the police would be rather a slight. So don't worry about the smiling duke, because he is quite all right as far as we know, and that is a long way in this wicked, sophisticated old world. And now do tell me more about dear Mr. Pegg! He has promised to drive me out to Sorrento to-morrow. And tell me all about lemons!" "I'd rather you'd tell me who makes your stays, my dear!" I replied. "They are so youthful!" Well, that was all I could learn from Abby--I mean about the duke. Upon the secondary subject she was most generously full of information. And I came away reassured to a certain extent.