Grant, returning from an early stroll in the streets of New York on the morning after his arrival, looked with dismay at the three capable and determined-looking young men who occupied chairs in his sitting room, and at the one young lady, who, having placed her notebook upon the table, was deeply immersed in a novel. They all rose at his entrance. Jim Havers of the New York Letter was the first to announce himself.

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Slattery.”

“Tarleton, of the Moon,” his neighbour announced. “Glad to welcome you back to New York, Mr. Slattery.”

“Booker, of the Chronicle,” the third young man echoed. “Hope we’re not too early for you.”

“I’m Phoebe Smiles,” the young lady told him, with the air of one who imparts information which should be entirely unnecessary. “You know about me, I dare say.”

Grant shook hands with all of them.

“Look here,” he said, “I’m very glad to see you and to be welcomed back home, but what’s it all about? I’m not a novelist, or a politician, or an English nobleman. You can’t get head lines out of me.”

“Not so sure that we mightn’t, sir,” Tarleton replied cheerfully, “We thought, as we all arrived in a bunch, we’d better wait and see whether you had any preference as to which section of the Press you talked to. If you haven’t you can give it to us all together. We can use the stuff a bit differently.”

“But I’m no use to you fellows,” Grant protested. “I’d just as soon talk to you all together as singly. In fact, I’d rather. It saves time. But what do you want me to talk about?”

“First of all your voyage home,” Tarleton suggested. “Some hurricane you struck, eh?”

“We ran into a terrible storm about two days out of Gibraltar,” Grant told them. “The Grey Lady behaved magnificently. Captain Martin and every one of my officers really deserve a word of praise. We didn’t even lose a boat, and, as you know, some of the big liners got badly knocked about.”

“That’s interesting,” Tarleton admitted, making a few notes. “There’s just one other little thing about the voyage, Mr. Slattery.”

“Go ahead,” Grant invited.

The three men looked at one another. Tarleton appeared to be almost embarrassed,—an unusual situation for a newspaper man. Grant, who had pushed a box of cigars across the table, lit a cigarette and threw himself into an easy-chair.

“There have been some rumours going around,” Tarleton said at last, “about a romantic stowaway.”

“Really!” Grant remarked. “I haven’t heard them. What sort of a stowaway?”

“A lady,” Booker interposed, taking up his share of the burden. “A lady who has been missing for some time from Monte Carlo.”

“Is that so!” Grant exclaimed. “What was her name?”

“The Princess von Diss.”

Grant stared at him for a moment.

“Do you mean to suggest that the Princess von Diss was a passenger on board my yacht?” he demanded.

“That’s the story that’s been going round,” Tarleton acknowledged.

“The idea seems to be that she smuggled herself on board without your knowledge,” Havers intervened, “and was only discovered on the third day out.”

“A beautiful romance,” Miss Phoebe Smiles murmured.

“Of course,” Tarleton suggested diffidently, “this might very reasonably seem to be a subject upon which you might not care to talk. Say the word, and we’ll quit. Put it to us that on the subject of the missing Princess von Diss Mr. Slattery had nothing to say, and down it goes in our books and we’ll pass on to the next.”

Grant smiled.

“I think you can go a little further than that,” he said. “You can assure the millions in New York, who are interested in this sort of thing, that I dined with the Princess von Diss on the night before I left Monte Carlo, at a dinner party given by Mr. Cornelius Blunn, the multi-millionaire,—a dinner which included her husband, the Prince von Diss, the King of Gothland, the English Prime Minister, and various other distinguished people. Since that evening I have not seen or heard of the Princess.”

The pencils were, for a moment, busy.

“One may take it, then,” Tarleton ventured, “that these stories of a romantic stowaway on board your yacht are untrue.”

“Entirely,” Grant assured them. “There was a large black cat discovered when we were three days out. She was the only stowaway I know about.”

“Good heading, that,” Booker observed.

“ROMANTIC STOWAWAY ON MR. GRANT SLATTERY’S YACHT DISCOVERED. ANSWERS TO THE NAME OF LIZZIE.”

“Well, that disposes of the less important object of our visit,” Havers declared. “Can you say anything to us, Mr. Slattery, about the Nice Conference of the Pact of Nations, and the invitation which was sent from there to this country?”

“I was at Monte Carlo at the time,” Grant replied, “and I had the privilege of meeting Lord Yeovil often. I look upon the invitation as one of the greatest events of this decade. Lord Yeovil ran a great risk in bringing it forward. There was, as you may have heard, opposition.”

Pencils were poised and an eager air of expectancy made itself felt.

“Can you,” Tarleton asked, “tell us which countries opposed the invitation?”

“The negative votes are recorded by black balls,” Grant explained. “I can only tell you that three were given. No one could say who put them in.”

“Did you hear any rumours as to which countries probably did oppose the motion?” Jim Havers enquired.

“Nice and Monte Carlo were full of gossip,” Grant replied. “But you must remember that very few people knew even what the system of voting was, much less that there were three black balls actually recorded. You gentlemen have made your scoop in being the first to publish that information. I had meant to have it published here. One of my objects in revisiting America is............