Miss Von "Sworsenburg" had obliged with a cloudless face. It was Lady McIntyre who looked disturbed, even guilty. She took refuge in a work-bag, which she unhooked from the back of her chair. She jerked it open hurriedly on her knees and bent her head to rummage in the depths. Conversation between Napier and Nan languished. Both were listening to those voices in the next room.

The door opened abruptly and in bustled Sir William, ruffling up the little hair he had left and looking the very picture of discomfort.

"Perfect dolt, that fella!" he threw over his shoulder to Miss Greta.

She followed Sir William with an air of calmness, not to say detachment, that even she, past mistress in the art of conveying the finer shades of superiority, had never excelled. "I left my gloves, I think," she said.

Sir William had gone to the bell and rung twice. "That fella says she ought to go and register. Makes out he'll get into trouble if she doesn't go at once."

"Register, William? What nonsense! Why on earth should she?"

"Why? Oh, the permit was informal, and only for a given time. Silly idiots!"

"Well, well," his wife soothed him, "tell the creatures, if they're in such a ridiculous hurry—she'll motor over to-morrow."

"To-morrow won't do. He's had orders. It's got to be to-night." Sir William spoke in his most testy tone.

Nan had sprung up and gone to her friend. Napier, too, had come forward. He picked up the missing gloves.

"Oh, thank you," said Miss Greta, with her smile. But it was the look on Nan's face that struck Napier—a look that haunted him afterwards. If it hadn't been absurd, he would have thought she was thanking him with all her soul; was giving him something. Something of unbelievable sweetness, "just because I stooped to pick up that woman's gloves!"

It was all in a flash. The next moment Nan stood buttoning up the coat she had so lately unbuttoned, and saying, "If you really must, I'm coming too!"—her eyes angry, her face ashamed. Miss von Schwarzenberg made no answer. Lady McIntyre was jerking out a succession of nervous questions which nobody took the trouble to notice.

"What we're coming to, I don't know." Sir William fumed and strutted up and down.

"Yes, Sir William." The servant stood there.

"Where's the tea?" Lady McIntyre in a sinking ship would have cried, "Where's the lifeboat?" with much the same accent and look of desperation.

"It's coming, m'lady. It's on the way up."

"Didn't I tell you five minutes ago"—the footman was catching it on the other side now—"you were to telephone for the car?"

"Yes, Sir William. It's coming round now, Sir William."

"Come, then," Miss Greta said, as though Nan were the person desired by the police. "I'm afraid I must carry you off."

"Oh, my dear!" Lady McIntyre rose with precipitation. Her work-bag rolled to the ground, but she didn't notice. Her blue eyes were on Greta's face a second, and then turned beseechingly on her husband.

"William!" She hurried over to him. "Surely, William, you—"

"Mere red-tape—mere red-tape, my dear," he said to his wife. "Though, if Lord Dacre wasn't coming over at half-past six on official business—I'd go with you," he said handsomely to Miss von Schwarzenberg. Miss von Schwarzenberg murmured politely in her veil that she wouldn't on any account have Sir William take so much trouble.

Lady McIntyre had jerked her head at Napier. But Napier seemed not to know his part in this scene. He stood silent, looking at the indignant face of Miss Greta's "little friend."

"It's too dreadful to let you go without one of us!" Lady McIntyre wailed. "Shall I come, Greta dear?" And then, a good deal unstrung at the possibility of having her offer accepted: "N-not that I'd be much good, I'm afraid. I was never in a police station in my life."

"I don't imagine," said Miss Greta, with her fine mixture of tolerance and delicate contempt, "that any of us have been much in police stations."

Recollections of Lord Dacre had not brought entire repose to Sir William. He twisted round in the comfortable chair:

"What do you say, Gavan? You won't mind representing me in this little—" he paused as the butler passed between them with a tray. A footman at his heels announced the car.

"Oh, she can't go without tea!" Lady McIntyre cried. Then with extreme felicity she added, "Why, before they hang people they give them tea!" Nan bit her lip.

The incomparable Greta smiled. "It doesn't the least matter about tea, dear Lady McIntyre. And I'd rather get to Newton Hackett before the po—the place shuts." The fraction of an instant her eyes rested on the servants, and then, as she went toward the door, "So good of you, so kind to let me have the motor!"

Miss Greta contrived, with economy of means beyond all praise, to give the expedition an air of being devised for her special convenience.

Sir William was plainly ruffled at Napier's obvious reluctance to accompany Miss Greta to Newton Hackett. Sir William was sorry it was such a bore.... If Colin or Neil had been at home, he wouldn't have had to ask anything so admittedly outside the range of a private secretary's functions. Presented like that, there was nothing for it but that Napier should, in Sir William's phrase, represent him in this little matter.

As the three were getting into the car, Madge leaned out of an upper window. "Well, I do think; sending me up here to wait for you! Where are you going?"

"Newton Hackett, dearest. Back soon." Miss Greta waved her handkerchief.

In a long bare room, a figure in uniform confronted them, on the other side of a table like a counter.

"Are you Inspector Adler?" Napier began.

Yes, the big fair man with a high color and heavy jowl was Inspector Adler.

"You were telephoned to, I believe?"

Yes, Inspector Smith had telephoned from Lamborough.

"Then you know all about this lady's errand." Napier stood aside for Miss Greta.

The interrogation went forward.

"Your surname is Sworsenberg?"

"No; von Schwarzenberg."

He seemed not greatly to like having his pronunciation corrected.

"Will you spell it?"

She spelt it.

"Your Christian name?"

"Johanna Marguerite."

"Please spell them."

She obliged.

"Where were you born?"

"At Ehrenheim."

"Will you spell it?" And when she had done so, he looked at the word with suspicion. "Where is it?"

"In Hanover."

"In Germany, you mean."

"In Hanover, Germany."

"In Germany." He put down the word about which already such a host of new connotations had begun to cling.

Nan lifted her eyes from the register to the man's face. He was taking this business too seriously, with his "Germany, you mean," as if Greta had tried to pretend that Hanover was somewhere else.

"I'm not English, either," said Miss Ellis in an explanatory tone.

"No?" The Inspector fixed her with his serious, blue eyes. "What are you?"

"American."

"Oh," he said, and lost interest.

"Now, Miss—a—Sworsenburger, what is the date of your birth?"

If Miss Greta hesitated a second, it seemed to be from a natural disgust at hearing her name murdered.

"Born 1886—and the name is von Schwarzenberg." She must have been aware of the touch of hauteur in the tone of her correction, for instantly she changed it. "You, too,"—she smiled at the burly inspector—"you have a German name."

"Me?"

"Adler is one of the most com—usual names in Germany."

"My name's not Ahdler. It's Adler."

"That's only a corruption," she said, less cautiously than was her wont.

"No corruption about it," he spoke roughly.

"She only means—" Napier began.

"Never 'eard in me life of a corrupt Adler. What's your business over 'ere?"

"This lady," Napier intervened, "came into the family of Sir William and Lady McIntyre as a governess."

"She has become a valued personal friend," Miss Ellis put in stiffly. "Haven't you heard that by telephone? You have only to ring up Sir William himself—"

"We are not supposed to take our information by telephone. How long do you want to stay in this country?"

"She lives here, as I've told you," said Napier, "in the family of—"

The interrogatory went on, Nan more and more furious, appealing silently to Napier from time to time; Miss Greta taking it all with a dignity that made even Napier feel that he had never yet seen her to such advantage. The inspector, too, must in his way have felt that this foreigner who had accused him of being a German (him, James Adler, for the love of God!) and had accused the Adlers of being corrupted, was somehow getting the best of the interview. He was already accustomed (and the war was as yet counted by weeks) to seeing the few Germans who had presented themselves to be registered adopt an attitude either humorous (accompanied by offers of cigars), or uneasy, or tending toward the apologetic. Napier was sure that Adler lorded it a little even over people who knew how to treat an inspector proper.

"I don't see how you can stay here at all now they've made this into a proscribed area," he said with a touch of pride at being inspector of a place so distinguished.

"Oh, so they have!" Miss Greta smiled. "I ought to have remembered, when Sir William took the trouble to see about a special permit." She opened a bag and took out a paper.

Inspector Adler looked at it with suspicion. Just this kind of case evidently hadn't come his way before.

"Maybe it's regular," he said cautiously as he handed the paper back. "Better take care of it. You'll need it if you do stay and ever want permission to go outside the five-mile radius."

Miss Greta maintained a lofty silence.

"How does she get such a further permission?" said Napier.

"By applying to the proper authority," said Mr. Adler; "in this case to me." The inspector was dabbing some purple ink on a pad. "Now your finger-print, if you please."

Miss Greta drew back, scarlet. "A German is what I am, not a criminal."

"'Ere's where you go." He pointed downwards with a large, blunt thumb.

Napier in his embarrassment looked away from Miss Greta. His glance fell upon Nan. The girl's eyes had filled. "It's an outrage," she said in a choked voice. "That kind of identification is meant for rogues and murderers."

But Miss Greta had recovered herself. "And that sort of person," she said, "of course must object very much. But, after all, why should—people like us?"

Nan pressed close to Greta's side. "Yes, you must finger-print me, too!" she said between pleading and command. "I'm every bit as much an alien as this lady."

"Not if you're an American. She's an enemy alien."

"She's not an enemy. You oughtn't to say such things."

"Maybe you know what I ought to say better than the Gover'ment."