A moment later she was gone, leaving only the subtle perfume of her presence in the room. Stanley threw himself moodily into the nearest chair. It was too bad that this bewitching woman should be married to a brute. It was too bad that he couldn't do more to help her, and it was--yes, it really was too bad, that she should have come again into his life just at the present moment. She was so exactly like what he had fancied the ideal woman he was to marry ought to be. But she wasn't a bit like Belle, and the reflection was decidedly disturbing. And now, he supposed, she would get a divorce, and--oh, pshaw! it wasn't his affair anyway, and he was late for his appointment with Kent-Lauriston. He rang his office bell sharply, picking up his hat and gloves as he did so, and saying to the messenger who answered his summons:-- "Give this report to his Excellency, John, and let me have some visiting cards, will you---- No, no, not any official ones. Some with my private address on." "Very sorry Sir, but they're all out. I ordered some more day before yesterday, Sir. They should have come by now." "Just my luck, why didn't you attend to them earlier?" "Isn't there one on your desk, Sir. I'm sure I saw one lying there this morning." "Why, yes, so there was." And he turned hastily back, only to exclaim after a moment's hopeless rummaging:-- "Confound it! I must have given it to Señora De Costa!" CHAPTER V A GENTLEMAN IN DISTRESS Kent-Lauriston was prompt to his appointment, and it took but a few moments to establish the Secretary and himself in a private room with a plentiful supply of cigarettes, and two whiskeys and sodas. Stanley was nervous and showed it. Kent-Lauriston adjusted his monocle, tugged at his long sandy moustache, and surveyed his companion from head to foot. "Not feeling fit?" he queried. "Suffering from political ennui?" "Oh, my health is all right, as far as that goes----" "Yes, I see," this last remark meditatively. Then he added. "Some deuced little scrape?" Stanley nodded. "Woman?" "It concerns a lady--perhaps two." Kent-Lauriston frowned, and tugged his moustache a trifle harder, to imply that he now understood the affair to be of a more complex order, requiring the aid of skilful diplomacy, in place of the simple directness of five-pound notes. "Want my advice, I suppose?" "Yes," admitted Stanley, "and so I'd better make a clean breast of the matter." "Decidedly." "The fact is, I want to marry--or rather, don't want to marry--no, that's not it either-- I want to marry the girl bad enough, but I think I'd better not. It would be what the world--what you might call, a foolish match." "Deucedly hard hit, I suppose?" "You see," continued the Secretary, ignoring his friend's question, "I know I oughtn't to marry her, but left to myself, I'd do it, and I need a jolly good rowing--only you mustn't be disrespectful to the lady--I--I couldn't stand that." "I think I know her name."