"A rather difficult youth to talk to," the ex-cardinal reflected. "He fails to follow up, or, apparently, even to understand, any of the usual conversational gambits. Is he very ignorant, or merely perverse?" As to Miss Longfellow, she gave Henry up as being not quite all there, and anyhow a bloodless kind of creature, who took very little notice of her. So she went indoors and played the piano. "I am failing," thought Henry. "She does not like me. I am not being intelligent. They will talk of things above my head, things I cannot understand." Apathy held him, drinking cherry brandy under the moon, and he could not care. Woman question? Man question? What was all this prating? 17 "And now," said Dr. Franchi, as he enjoyed a cigar and Henry a cigarette and both their liqueurs, "let us talk of this mysterious business of poor Svensen." "Yes, do let's," said Henry, for this was much more in his line. "I may misjudge you, Mr. Beechtree, but I have made a guess that you entertain certain suspicions in this matter. Is that the case? Ah, I see I am right. No, tell me nothing you do not wish. In fact, tell me nothing at all. It would be, at this point, indiscreet. Instead, let us go through all the possible alternatives." He paused, and puffed at his cigar for a while in thoughtful silence. "First of all," he presently resumed, "poor Svensen may have met with an accident. He may have fallen into the lake and have been drowned. But this we will set aside as improbable. Geneva is seldom quite deserted at night, and he would have attracted attention. Besides which, I have heard that he is an excellent swimmer. No; an improbable contingency. What remains? Foul play. Some person or persons have attacked him in a deserted spot and either murdered or kidnapped him. But who? And for what purpose? Robbery? Personal enmity? Revenge? Or an impersonal motive, such as a desire, for some reason, to damage and retard the doings of the Assembly? It might be any of these.... Let us for a moment take the hypothesis that it is the last. To whom, then, might such a desire be attributed? Unfortunately, my dear Mr. Beechtree, to many different persons." "But more to some than to others," Henry brightly pointed out. "Certainly more to some than to others. More to the Poles than to the Lithuanians, for instance, for is it not to the Polish interest to hold up the proceedings of the Assembly while the present violation of the Lithuanian frontier by Polish hordes continues? Well they know that any inquiry into that matter set on foot by the League would end in their discomfiture. Every day that they can retard the appointment of a committee of inquiry is to the good, from their point of view.