“It wasn’t time enough for Godfrey,” she reminded me quickly. But the next moment she flushed a little, as though ashamed. “Oh, never mind that! Let’s stick to business. What you’re going to find out for me is whether Arsenio Valdez—yes, Arsenio—is a proper object for charitable assistance, whether he makes a proper use of what I send him, and whether I ought to send more.” “That, so far as you’re concerned, is it precisely.” On which polite basis of transparent humbug Nina and I parted for the moment. We were to meet again at lunch. But Waldo would be there; so no more of our forbidden subject. Alas! here was to be the end of the subject altogether for some little while. At lunch a very crestfallen man, though he tried to wear an unconcerned air, informed Lady Dundrannan that Sir Ezekiel Coldston had wired him a peremptory summons to attend an important business conference in Paris; so there was an end of the Riviera too for the time being. The order must be obeyed at once. Waldo came into the room just as I achieved this explanation; somehow it sounded like a confession of defeat. “Oh, well, the Riviera will wait till you come back,” said Her Ladyship, with an unmistakable gleam of satisfaction in her eye. She had tactfully agreed to the search for Lucinda, but she had not liked it. It was at any rate postponed now. CHAPTER XV THE SYSTEM WORKS I WAS in Paris for full four weeks, representing Sir Ezekiel (who was laid up with asthma) on the International Commercial Conference on the Regulation and Augmentation of the World’s Tonnage, a matter in which our company was, of course, deeply interested. It was the best chance I had yet secured of distinguishing myself in the business world. The work, besides being important and heavy, was also interesting. The waking intervals between our sessions and conferences were occupied by luncheons, banquets, and _conversaziones_; if we dealt faithfully with one another at the business meetings, we professed unlimited confidence in one another on the social occasions. In fact, if we had really believed all we said of one another after lunch or after dinner, each of us would have implored his neighbor to take all the goods, or tonnage, or money that he possessed and dispose of it as his unrivaled wisdom and unparalleled generosity might dictate. We did not, however, make any such suggestions in business hours; the fact that we did quite the opposite prolonged the negotiations.