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diff --git a/35671.txt b/35671.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff4aff6 --- /dev/null +++ b/35671.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14162 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Messenger, by Elizabeth Robins, +Illustrated by George Giguére + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Messenger + + +Author: Elizabeth Robins + + + +Release Date: March 24, 2011 [eBook #35671] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MESSENGER*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made +available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 35671-h.htm or 35671-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35671/35671-h/35671-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35671/35671-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/messenger00robiiala + + + + + +THE MESSENGER + +by + +ELIZABETH ROBINS + +Author of "Come and Find Me," etc. + +With Illustrations by George Giguere + + + + + + + +New York +The Century Co. +1919 + +Copyright, 1919, by +Elizabeth Robins + +Copyright, 1918, 1919, by +The Century Co. + +Published, September, 1919 + + + + + TO + S. C. + + + + +[Illustration: "Now your finger-print, if you please"] + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Now your finger-print, if you please" + +"O Gavan, save me!" + +"I have a cabin below. I place it at the lady's disposal" + +"The name of the man in the War Office!" + + + + +THE MESSENGER + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"After all, we aren't _yet_ living in the millennium, Julian. What I'm +afraid of is that some day you'll be wanting to carry these notions of +yours beyond the bounds of what's reasonable." + +"You mean," said the other young man, with a flash in his dark eyes, +"you mean you're afraid I may just chance to be honest in my 'notions,' +as you call them, of a scheme of social justice." + +As far off as you saw Gavan Napier, you knew him as a scion not only of +the governing class, but in all likelihood of one of the governing +families. Exactly the sort of man, you would say, to have Eton and +Balliol in the past, a present as unpaid, private secretary to a member +of his Majesty's Government, and a future in which the private secretary +himself would belong to officialdom and employ pleasant, more or less +accomplished, and more rather than less idle, young gentlemen to take +down occasional notes, write an occasional letter, and see a boring +constituent. + +It was no boring constituent he was seeing now, out of those cool blue +eyes of his, yet he followed with evident dissatisfaction the figure of +a woman who had appeared an instant over the sand-dunes and who, as +Napier turned to look at her instead of at his ball, changed her tack +and sauntered inland. + +"What do you suppose she's always hanging about for?" Napier asked his +companion. + +"As if you didn't know!" + +"Well, if _you_ do," retorted Napier, "I wish you'd tell me." + +"I shall do nothing of the kind. You're quite conceited enough." Julian +shouldered his golf clubs (it was against his principles to employ a +caddie) and trudged on at the side of his unencumbered friend. The eyes +of both followed the lady disappearing among the dunes. + +"I've seen her only two or three times," Julian said, "but I've seen she +hasn't eyes for anybody except you." + +"_That's_ far from being so," Napier retorted. "But if it were, I should +know the reason." + +"Of course you do." + +"But _you_ don't," Napier still insisted. "The reason is I'm the only +person in the house who isn't Miss von Schwarzenberg's slave." + +"Oh! I took her at first for just a governess." + +"She's a lot besides that!" Napier wagged his head in a +curiosity-provoking way. + +"There's been so much to talk about since I got back," Julian went on, +"or else I've been meaning to ask about her." + +"She interests you?" Napier asked a little sharply. + +"I confess," said Julian, "I haven't understood her position at the +McIntyres." + +"If _I_ haven't--it isn't from lack of data. Only,"--Napier wrinkled his +fine brows--"did you ever know a person that nothing you know about +them seems to fit? That isn't grammar, but it's my feeling about that +young woman." + +The two played a very evenly matched game. As they walked side by side +after their balls, Julian wondered from time to time whether the subject +of Miss von Schwarzenberg had been introduced to prevent his reverting +to that vision of his--all the clearer since his tour round the +world--of a reconstituted society in which vested privilege should no +longer have a leg to stand on. Or could it be that Gavan was seriously +intrigued by the Rhine maiden who, more or less as a special favor, had +consented to superintend the studies and to share the recreations of +"that handful," Madge McIntyre, aged sixteen? This girl, with the boyish +face and boyish tastes and boyish clothes (whose mane of flaming hair +had helped to fasten on her the nickname of Wildfire McIntyre), Julian +already knew slightly as the only and much-spoiled daughter of Napier's +chief. Sir William McIntyre, K. C. B., adviser to the Admiralty and +laird of Kirklamont, had been the notable chairman of endless shipping +companies and prime promoter of numberless commercial enterprises, until +he accepted a seat in the cabinet, a man of vigor and some originality +of mind, in contrast to his wife--a brainless butterfly of a woman who +complained bitterly that she had less trouble with her four sons than +with her one daughter. The one daughter, by ill luck, had an +inconvenient share of her father's force of character. She had ruled the +house of McIntyre till the advent of the lady in question. + +That lady's predecessor had been a Miss Gayne. Miss Gayne had been in +possession till a fateful morning last summer when Madge, driving along +the coast road, came in sight of Glenfallon Castle, and pulled up her +pony with a jerk that nearly precipitated poor Miss Gayne out of the +cart. "My goodness gracious, the Duke is back!" + +Glenfallon, on its cliff above the Firth, commanded a view north and +south over the many-bayed and channeled mainland, out over rocky +islets--shining jewels of jacinth and jasper and azurite, spilled +haphazard into the sea--clear away to that great gray expanse miscalled +by the new governess the German Ocean. Nobody had lived at Glenfallon as +long as Madge could remember, so that she might perhaps be pardoned for +emitting that excited scream at sight of two young men in tennis +flannels busying themselves about the net. + +"We mustn't sit here staring at them," Miss Gayne remonstrated. + +Miss Gayne picked up the reins which Madge had let fall. Madge seized +them with an impatient "Don't!" and flung them round the whip. + +"It isn't proper to sit like this, staring into a stranger's tennis +court. At two strange young men, too!" + +"I'm only staring at one. You can have the other." + +Presently a tennis ball came over the wall and bounced into the road. +Before Miss Gayne could remonstrate, Madge was out of the cart and had +sent the ball hurtling back. + +The younger man caught it, and the elder advanced to the wall to thank +the young lady. He was a very good specimen of fair, broad-shouldered, +blunt-featured manhood, but when he opened his mouth he spoke with a +foreign accent. + +"When are you expecting him?" demanded Madge. + +"Expecting whom? We are not expecting anybody, I'm afraid, and the more +pleased to see _you_." He made his quick little bow and turned, to +present his brother. "This is Ernst Pforzheim and I am Carl." + +Madge nodded, deliberately ignoring Miss Gayne's hurried approach and +disapproving presence. + +"How do you do? Have you bought Glenfallon?" + +No, they had only leased it. They hoped the change and quiet might do +their father some good. He hadn't been well ever since ... ever since +they lost their mother. + +"We have great hopes of this fine air and perfect quiet," said the +elder. "The quiet is the very thing for our father--but for us it may +become a little _triste_. So we play tennis. Do you play tennis, +Miss ... a ... Miss...?" + +"Do I play tennis?" Madge did not long leave any doubt on that score. + +The adventure was not smiled on at home, but poor Miss Gayne got all the +blame. + +There was a touch of irony in the lady's being succeeded by some one +recommended by, or at least through, these very undesirable and +undoubtedly foreign acquaintances. + +The same success which the Pforzheim young men had with their country +neighbors generally, they had with Madge. Everybody seemed to like them. +Lady McIntyre liked them from the first. "Such charming manners! And so +devoted to their poor father!" + +With his pleasant malice Napier described the Pforzheims at Kirklamont, +and Lady McIntyre's graciousness that "'_so_ hoped to make your father's +acquaintance.'" The Pforzheims shook their heads over the poor +gentleman's condition, "'confined to a darkened room.'" + +"'But we heard that he was out yesterday evening, in your new steam +launch.' + +"'Ah! that ... yes ... that is because his eyes are very painful. He +can't bear the least light. So he gets no exercise and no change of air +during the day.' + +"'Well, in that case of course he couldn't expect to sleep!' And then +Lady McIntyre had an inspiration. 'Doesn't it sound,' she appealed to +Sir William, 'extremely like the kind of insomnia Lord Grantbury suffers +from? I believe it's the very identical same. And Lord Grantbury has +found a cure.' + +"Great sensation on the part of the Pforzheims. Oh, _would_ Lady +McIntyre tell them.... They'd be eternally grateful if she would only +get Lord Grantbury's prescription. But Lady McIntyre could produce it at +once. She did produce it. And what did Julian think it was?" + +Julian shook his head. He knew quite well now that Arthur was telling +him this yarn in order to avoid reopening the subject of their +disagreement--the only one in their lives. So he bore with hearing that +Lord Grantbury's remedy for insomnia was a combination of motion and +absence of daylight. Lord Grantbury had contended that light was a +strong excitant. That the consciousness of being seen, of having to +acknowledge recognition, or even of knowing your label was being clapped +on your back--all that was disturbing in certain states of health. "'So +he has himself driven out, they say, about eleven o'clock at night in a +sixty-horsepower car, and goes whizzing along lonely roads where there's +no fear of police traps, as hard as he can lick. When he comes back, he +finds that all that ozone, and whatever it is, has quieted him. He +sleeps like a top.' The sons were advised to put Father Pforzheim in a +Rolls-Royce car and see what would happen. 'You haven't got a high power +car? Till they can send for one,'--Lady McIntyre appealed to her +husband--'don't you think, William, we might--?' + +"But Carl, profuse in thanks, said that unfortunately his father had a +nervous abhorrence of motor cars. + +"'How very strange!' said Lady McIntyre. + +"'No, it wasn't at all strange. My mother,'--Carl dropped his eyes and +compressed his full lips--'our dear mother was killed in a motor +accident.' + +"'But our father,'--Ernst looked up as he brushed a white, triple-ringed +hand across his eyes--'our father finds the water soothing. After all, +Carl, swift motion on the water, why shouldn't that do as well as racing +along a road?' + +"'_And_ darkness,' said Lady McIntyre. + +"'_And_ darkness!' the brothers echoed her together. 'We can never thank +you enough, Lady McIntyre. We will persevere with your friend Lord +Grantbury's remedy.'" The brothers clicked their heels and pressed their +lips to her hand and left her in a flutter. The poor young men's anxiety +was most touching! Especially Carl's. Lady McIntyre, according to +Napier, doted on Carl. He wasn't so taken up by his filial +preoccupations either, that he couldn't sympathize with the anxiety of a +mother. Lady McIntyre's about Madge. Mr. Carl agreed that Miss Gayne was +_not_ the person. He had seen that at once. No influence whatever. Miss +McIntyre was a very charming young lady. Full of character. Fire, too. +She required special handling. + +"'Ah! how well you understand! Now, what do you advise me to do? Seeing +you reminds me,' Lady McIntyre said with her infantile candor, 'that +we've never tried a German governess. We've had so many French ones. And +quite an army of English and Scotch--' + +"'Ah! a German governess!'"--he pulled at his mustache. Mr. Pforzheim +promised to consult his aunt. The widow of a Heidelberg professor. + +By a special providence Frau Lenz knew of a young lady who was at that +moment in London, on her way home from America. She would be the very +person to consult. + +"She was the very person to _get_," Lady McIntyre said, when she came +back from interviewing the paragon. "And, Heaven be praised, I've got +her!" + +They had gone back to London on account of that commission Sir William +had insisted on having appointed. There were a lot of people in London +that July, and things going on. Madge in the thick of everything, as +though she'd been twenty-five instead of fifteen. That's how the von +Schwarzenberg found her, neglecting lessons, ignoring laws, living at +the theater, figuring at her father's official parties, sitting up till +all hours of the night, smoking cigarettes till her fingers looked as if +she'd been shelling green walnuts, gossiping, arguing, on every subject +under the sun. That's the situation to which Miss von Schwarzenberg was +introduced as the latest in a long and sorry line. + +Napier had watched the transformation. + +"They've raised the Schwarzenberg's salary twice." She had subdued every +member of the minister's household. + +"Not you, I hope?" Julian said quickly. + +Napier laughed. "_She_ would set your mind at rest on that score. Only +the other day she got me into a corner. 'What have you got against me, +Mr. Napier?' she said. 'You don't like me.' It took me so by surprise, I +stammered: '_I?..._ What an idea!' '_Why_ don't you like me, Mr. +Napier?' Mercifully just then Wildfire McIntyre flamed across our +path." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +When the young men reached Kirklamont, the McIntyres were already +gathered about the tea-table in the hall of the big, ugly, Scotch +country house. "The family" consisted at the moment only of three, the +fourth person present being Miss von Schwarzenberg, for it was mid-July. +In another month the absent sons (two soldiers and a sailor) would come +up for the shooting and bring their friends. + +All this presupposed--as nobody found the least difficulty in +doing--that Sir William's recent "little heart attack" would leave no +legacy more destructive of the usual routine than abandonment of London +a fortnight or so earlier than had been planned. A more acute anxiety +might have touched Lady McIntyre had her husband not deliberately thrown +her off the track. He dubbed the great specialist "a verra reasonable +fella," who didn't make a mountain out of a molehill. The patient did +not add the means by which he had been coerced into turning his back on +public affairs at a moment made so critical for the Government by Irish +affairs. + +"A break in the London strain, at once and often, or else smash." + +That was the dour deliverance which had installed the McIntyres in their +beloved Kirklamont two weeks earlier than they could have hoped. It was +a party which, with a single exception (again Miss von Schwarzenberg), +had shaken off London by every token of tweed garment, stout boots, of +golf stockings, and of gaiters. + +Cup in hand, Sir William, as became the head of the house, stood planted +on wide-apart legs in front of the fireplace--a sanguine-colored, plump, +little partridge of a man with a kind, rather _ruse_ face. + +Lady McIntyre, behind the urn--fair, fluffy-haired, blue-eyed--looked, +as such women will, far older in the country than she did in her "London +clothes." But she was far too correct not to make any sacrifice called +for by the unwritten law of her kind. Behold her, therefore, bereft of +all fripperies save the dangling diamond ear-rings, which emphasized +painfully an excuse for frivolity which had been outlived. To tell the +blunt truth, Lady McIntyre looked like some shrunken little duenna, +attendant on the opulent majesty of the heavy-braided, ox-eyed Juno at +her side. For Miss von Schwarzenberg shared the High Seat--otherwise +Lady McIntyre's carved settle. At her feet sat Madge, her pupil, and an +Aberdeen terrier. + +"You _really_!"--the high-pitched excitement in the girl's voice reached +the young men depositing their golf clubs and caps in the lobby--"you +really and truly want to learn golf--_after all_?" + +"If nobody has any objection," a voice answered, in an accent very +slightly foreign, and to the English ear suggesting, as much as +anything, Western American. + +"Objection! Quite the contrary. Capital idea!" Sir William spoke +heartily. + +Bobby, fourteen but looking nearer eighteen, spilled over and sprawled +out of an arm-chair as he beat the arm, and cried out with animation and +a mouth full of griddle cake, "Bags I teach you, Fraeulein!" + +"I hope you've been taking it out of Gavan," Sir William had called out +by way of greeting to Julian. Julian played up by proceeding to describe +with mock braggadoccio how he'd completely taken the shine out of the +champion. That person, handing tea, contented himself with privately +observing yet again how his friend, long and lithe and dark, offered to +the rotund little figure of the eminent official a contrast that +ministered pleasantly to a sense of the ludicrous. Sir William's bald +bullet head barely reached the height of Julian's chest. But it was +notorious--and Napier had not worked for two years with Sir William +without finding good reason to share the prevalent opinion--that inside +the aforesaid bullet was an uncommon amount of shrewd sense and a highly +developed skill in organizing power. + +Sir William ran his department as he ran his vast commercial +enterprises, with an ease that was own child of intelligence of a high +degree. But now, as though it were the main factor in life, he talked +golf. + +The governess, after a perfunctory "how do you do" to the visitor, had +leaned over to stroke the Aberdeen. The lady's full-moon face--with its +heavy, shapely nose, its smooth apple cheeks, its quiet, beautiful +mouth--was bent down till her chin rested on her generous bust. It +occurred to Napier that she often adopted this pose. It gave her an air +of pensiveness, of submission, the more striking in a person of so much +character. + +Also, the little tendrils of yellow hair that escaped from under the +Gretchen-like banded braids cast delicate shadows on the whitest neck +Napier had ever seen. Oh, she had her points. + +"Did you hear, Mr. Grant?" Madge called out. "Miss von Schwarzenberg +says now she wants to learn our foolish national game." + +"Never!" Julian turned back to the tea-table. His tone was faintly +ironic--as though the sensation created by this lady's conversion to +golf seemed disproportionate to its importance. + +Lady McIntyre lifted her appealing eyes. "I wonder if you'd be very +kind, Mr. Grant, and help the children to teach Miss von Schwarzenberg?" + +The almost infinitesimal pause was cancelled, obliterated, by Miss von +Schwarzenberg's promptitude. "Oh, I couldn't think of being such a +trouble." She had risen. "Sit here, Mr. Grant," she said. "Yes, +_please_. I've finished." In spite of his protest, she retired to a +chair on the far side of the fireplace--Napier's side--and picked up her +knitting. + +Madge followed, dog-like, and so did the Aberdeen. + +"It _is_ a comfort," Lady McIntyre went on, "to find such a terribly +clever person"--she nodded significantly in the direction of Miss von +Schwarzenberg--"taking an interest in the things ordinary mortals care +about. It's been the one fault I've had to find with Greta. She doesn't +play games. They don't, you know. But the Germans are a wonderful +people! Take this young girl"--she lowered her voice. But, however, +little of the conversation was lost on Miss von Schwarzenberg. She +knitted steadily. Madge played with the dog. + +"Greta's only twenty-five or six," Lady McIntyre went on. "Her father +was an officer of Uhlans. An invalid now. And somehow they lost their +money. An uncle in America is tremendously rich, and he's had Greta at +one of the great women's colleges over there. She insisted on going home +every summer ... _so_ domestic, the Germans! I always think it's +extremely nice of them to feel affectionate toward such a horrid country +as Germany--don't you, Mr. Grant? And such a language to wrestle with, +poor things! Do you know, they call a thimble a finger hat? Yes, and a +pin a stick needle!" + +"Well, well!"--Sir William broke off in the middle of the golf +discussion, and rattled his seals with great vigor, as though they were +a summons to industry--a simulacrum of factory bell or works whistle. "I +must write one more letter. No, I don't need you, Gavan." + +"But that translation?" + +"It's done." + +"Done!" said the astonished Napier. + +"And couldn't be better," said Sir William, as he disappeared into the +library. + +"Miss Greta did it!" triumphed Bobby. + +"I wonder," said the lady, smiling, "which of you two would go and get +me the rest of my wool?" + +Bobby was on his feet, staring helplessly round. + +"In your work bag?" asked Madge. + +Greta nodded, and the two raced each other upstairs. Miss Greta lifted +her candid eyes. "Does it require a _great_ deal of practice, Mr. +Napier, to play golf passably?" She blushed slightly as she went on: "I +suppose I've hoped that if I watched you, I'd stand a better chance of +playing a fair game myself some day. Fair, that is," she added, with her +meek droop of the braid-crowned head, "fair for a woman." + +"I'm sure you know," Napier returned a little impatiently, "that plenty +of women play very well." + +"Do you mean," she inquired with her soft persistence, "you'd ever be so +kind as to give me a tip or two?" + +He didn't answer at once, and she turned in her chair to look at him. +Out from her disarranged cushion rolled a large ball of field gray. It +bumped against Napier's ankle and rebounded to the wall. + +"Isn't this the wool you were looking for?" He took it up by the loose +end, and rapidly unrolled several yards of it. + +"Thank you _so_ much! I can't think how it got down here." She took the +ball from him, and remained standing while she rewound. "After all, I +sha'n't much more than have time to get on my things." She glanced at +the clock. + +"Where are you going?" Lady McIntyre asked the question from habit. +Seldom was Greta allowed to leave the room without that question. + +"You were so kind as to say I might have the cart." + +"Oh, yes," Lady McIntyre remembered. + +"What for?" asked Bobby, tumbling downstairs. "Want to be driven +somewhere? Bags I--" + +"Certainly _not_!" Madge called out to him. And then in a markedly +different tone, "I've turned everything out of.... Oh, you've got it!" + +It was all right, Miss Greta said comprehensively. She would go to the +station alone. + +"Oh, _please_ let me come!" Madge begged. + +Miss von Schwarzenberg shook her head. Madge looked at her wistfully. "I +_wish_ she wasn't coming!" + +Then with a gleam, "I believe you do too!" + +Miss von Schwarzenberg smiled. + +"Who is it?" demanded Bobby. + +"Oh, a little American friend of mine. A girl I went to school with." + +"Her name's Nan Ellis," Madge informed the company gloomily, "and she's +not much to look at, and not at all rich, and not much of anything that +I can discover. Just a millstone round Miss Greta's neck." + +"We mustn't say _that_." Miss Greta was winding the last couple of +yards. "You see, she's an orphan, and I rather took her under my wing at +school--poor child!" + +Bobby asked if the American was going to stay with us. + +"Oh, no," said the wool winder, now at the end of her task. "At the inn, +of course." Miss Greta glanced again at the clock as she gathered up her +knitting. + +"Cart wasn't ordered till six," Madge threw in. "Don't you mean to bring +her here at all?" + +"I should be delighted. But--I can't flatter myself that my little +friend would interest _you_." She swept the circle. "Quite a _nice_ +girl, but ..." (a deprecatory wave of one hand), "well, crude. Western, +you know. She has grown used to looking to me for the summer. I tried to +explain that--" the pause was eloquent of a delicate desire to spare +feelings--"that I wasn't taking a holiday myself this year. But,"--on +her way out of the hall Miss Greta laughed over her shoulder--"she's not +perhaps so very quick at--how do you say it?--not so quick at the +uptake." She turned at the sound of a motor car rushing up the drive. + +Through the open lobby doors a girl was seen rising from her seat and +scanning Kirklamont Hall with a slight frown. As the car swerved round +to the entrance she called out to the chauffeur in a voice of appalling +distinctness, and most unmistakably transatlantic: "Are you sure this is +the place? It isn't _my_ idea of a.... _Oh!_" She had given one glance +through the lobby and was out of the car as a bird goes over a hedge. +"It is! It is!"--The girl stood in the hall, holding out her hands, +"_Greta!_" + +"My _dear_ Nan!" Miss von Schwarzenberg had hastened forward, more +flurried than anybody there had ever seen her. + +"Oh, my!" said the newcomer with a face of rapture. "Oh, _my_!" and she +fell to hugging Miss von Schwarzenberg. + +Bobby sat contorting his long legs and arms with unregenerate glee at +Fraeulein's struggle to be cordial and at the same time to disengage +herself as rapidly as possible. + +Lady McIntyre left her settle and pattered forward with hospitable +intent. An instant of indecision on Miss von Schwarzenberg's part, and +then Miss Ellis was duly presented. + +She wasn't nearly so tall as Napier had thought her when she stood up in +the car. This was because the figure was slight and extremely erect. For +the rest, a small head, overweighted with a profusion of bright, brown +hair; a rather childish face under a little golden-brown hat, guiltless +of trimming but for the two brown wings set one on each side, rather +far back. "The kind of hat," Napier pointed out afterward, "that +Pheidias gave to Mercury. Cheek for a girl to wear a hat like that!" + +Even under her manifest excitement, the delicate oval of the girl's face +showed only a faint tinge of color. Miss von Schwarzenberg's round +cheeks were richest carmine. "Oh, you've kept the car! That's right. I +won't stop for a hat. Your scarf, Madge. Then I won't have to keep her +waiting." + +"But why must you--" Lady McIntyre began. + +"She has rooms at the inn," said Miss von Schwarzenberg, with decision, +as she wrapped Madge's scarf round her braids. + +Yes, Lady McIntyre understood that. "But why should you be in such a +hurry?" + +"Oh, _I'm_ not in any hurry," said the girl. "Not now. I have been in a +hurry--a terrible hurry for sixteen days. But now--" she smiled a bright +contentment at her goal. + +The instant application of Miss von Schwarzenberg's arm to her friend's +waist was less for love, Napier felt sure, than as a means of +propulsion. "You'd like to get unpacked, I'm certain." + +Lady McIntyre, nervously anxious not to be inhospitable to Greta's +visitor, declared she was not going to allow them to go till Miss Ellis +had had some tea. Miss Ellis still stood looking at her friend with +adoring affection. Plainly she was ready to do anything Greta +liked--anything that didn't involve her losing sight of this face she'd +traveled five thousand miles to see. Greta unwound her scarf. + +"This is my daughter," said Lady McIntyre. + +"Oh, are you 'Madge'? Of course, I've heard about you." Miss Ellis put +out a hand. + +Madge gave it a muscular shake and let go quickly. "How do?" + +The stranger seemed not to notice. She accepted a double wedge of +buttered scone from Bobby, and with great cheerfulness she deposited +three lumps of sugar in her tea. + +Miss von Schwarzenberg raised her eyes to Napier's face. He and Julian, +several yards away, were leaning against the mantel-piece, pretending to +discuss the Ulster situation. + +As Miss von Schwarzenberg, across her friend, met Napier's look, she +smiled ever so faintly, but with enormous meaning. "Behold a child of +nature," the look said. Then, "Did you have a good passage, Nanchen?" +she asked. + +"Well, they _said_ it was a bad passage. I thought it perfectly +glorious." Miss Ellis had taken a large slab of shortbread. Rapid +disposal of it did not at all interfere with a description of the +amenities of an unchaperoned sea voyage. Miss Ellis did not pause till, +to the accompaniment of a crunch of gravel and voices outside, two young +men could be descried coming up the middle of the drive. They were +leading a couple of great, long-bodied, white dogs. + +The hall was instantly a hive of excitement. Bobby and Madge bolted out +as one, with cries of rapture. Lady McIntyre, hardly less pleased, +prepared to follow, with Julian. Napier sauntered slowly after them. + +The elder Pforzheim entered with his brisk ceremoniousness, and bowed +low over Lady McIntyre's hand: "My father has sent you those Russian +boarhounds he promised. Ernst has got them outside"--he stood back in +that _empresse_ way of his that seemed to say, "My manners are far too +perfect not to suffer others to precede." And the others, in the +careless English way, _did_ precede. They even blocked up the entrance, +leaving Mr. Carl and his politeness in the rear. This manoeuver so +obstructed the view that Miss Ellis rose and came a few paces nearer, +hoping for a better sight of those exciting animals. Napier, glancing +back, saw that Miss von Schwarzenberg sat perfectly still. + +"Did you ever see boarhounds before, Greta? I never did." + +What Greta answered, Napier didn't hear; but the moment was not lost +upon him when, all view of the spectacle being quite shut out by the +crowding at the door, Miss Ellis' attention--about to return to the +tea-table--"caught," as it were, on Carl Pforzheim's profile. + +"Why, how do you do?" she said with a quick turn. "I'm very glad to meet +you." + +Carl Pforzheim stared. Miss von Schwarzenberg shot forward and took Nan +by the arm. + +"In the midst of all the masses of strangers I've been seeing, you seem +like an old friend. Tell him, Greta--" At sight of Miss von +Schwarzenberg's face, she stopped short. + +"I think you are making some mistake," said Mr. Carl. + +"Oh, no, I'm not!" that terribly "carrying" voice went on. "It's because +Greta has told me such a great deal about you. And you're exactly like +your picture, down to the cleft in your chin--" The girl hesitated +again as Greta mumbled, and Pforzheim, with a desperate, "I must help my +brother," forgot all his fine manners and pushed his way out. + +"What's the matter, dearest? Oughtn't I to have said that?" Then in a +half whisper: "I never mentioned Ernst. And, after all, it was only +Ernst that you--" + +"_Will_ you be quiet?" + +In another ten seconds they were whirling away in the car. + + * * * * * + +Napier walked half-way home with Grant as usual. He was amused at +Julian's indignation over the von Schwarzenberg's patronage of her +"little friend." And then they quarreled a little over Napier's decision +that it was cheek for a girl to come "winged like Mercury." Julian +defended her. He'd never seen a hat he liked better. It just suited that +face of hers. + +"'That face!'" Napier mocked. "I suppose, out of pure contentiousness, +you'll be saying it's pretty." + +"'Pretty!' Pretty faces are cheap. That one has got the fineness of a +wood anemone. And the faith of a St. Francis. Did you ever _see_ such +faith in any pair of eyes? Ye gods! If I could believe in life as that +child does, if I were as serenely sure of everybody's good will,"--he +threw out his walking-stick at the prison wall between him and such +freedoms, such innocent securities. "It's pathetic--a person like that. +Think of the knocks she'll get. Think--" + +"What I'm thinking of--I can't get it out of my mind! Every time I go +back to it, it seems to me stranger--the expression on the von +Schwarzenberg's face when the girl recognized Pforzheim." + +"What sort of expression?" said Julian, absently. + +"I wish you'd seen it! And the way she looked after Carl with a sort of +cowering apology, before she plunged into the car. Now leave off +quarreling with me about the Mercury cap, and just tell me: Why the +devil should that woman have pretended she'd never seen the Pforzheims +before she met them at Kirklamont? I wake up in the middle of the night +and ask myself that question." + +"How do you know she pretended--?" + +"I was there. I saw them introduced." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +That hall at Kirklamont was for Gavan Napier, as he looked back, forever +associated with the most decisive hours in his own fate, as well as that +of his closest friend. It meant to him, perhaps more than anything, the +abiding memory of that morning after the arrival of Miss Greta's "little +friend." + +He stood in front of the fireplace, waiting for Andrews to bring in the +post. At that particular moment there wasn't anybody else in the hall. +There probably soon would be somebody, Napier reflected, with a mingled +sense of amusement and uneasiness. For this was about the time Miss von +Schwarzenberg was astute enough to choose for her little tete-a-tetes +with the private secretary--always elaborately accidental. Sir William +would be out riding; Lady McIntyre dawdling over her late breakfast, and +Madge in the schoolroom, as Napier could all too plainly hear, +practising with that new ruthlessness introduced by Miss von +Schwarzenberg. + +Miss Greta was never so at a loss as to enter without her little excuse, +"I think I must have left my knitting." Or, _sans_ phrase, she would go +to the writing table and consult Whitaker or Bradshaw. There was always +a semblance of reasonableness in such preoccupation. For Lady McIntyre +had fallen into the habit of going to Miss Greta for every sort of +service, from somebody's official style and title to looking out trains. + +It wasn't the first, by several score of times, that young ladies had +shown themselves fertile in pretexts for a little conversation with Mr. +Napier. He himself was not in the least averse, as a rule, to a little +harmless flirtation--even with a governess. But suppose this particular +young woman should, with the fatal German sentimentality, be really +falling in love. One day, as he was sorting the letters, she had stood +at the table beside him, _durchblattering_ Bradshaw with piteous +aimlessness. He suggested: "Shall I look it up for you.... Where do you +want to go?" + +With a heave of her high bosom she had answered that sometimes she +thought the place she'd best go to was the bottom of Kirklamont Loch. +Only the timely entrance of a servant with a telegram had, Napier felt, +saved him from a most inconvenient scene. He reflected anxiously upon +the high rate of suicide in Germany. It would be very awful if for sake +of his _beaux yeux_ Miss Greta should find a watery grave. + +He looked at the clock. If the post was late, so was Miss von +Schwarzenberg. + +Suddenly it came over Napier that she timed these entrances of hers, not +according to the clock, and not according to his own movements. He was +sometimes twenty minutes waiting there alone for the post to come in. + +"God bless my soul!" he ejaculated mentally. Wasn't she invariably here +about two minutes before Andrews brought in the bag? + +Before Napier had time to readjust himself to this new view of the +lady's apparent interest in _him_--there she was!--in her very +feminine, rather Londony, clothes; her intensely white, plump neck +rising out of a lace blouse; her yellow hair bound in smooth braids +round her head; a light dust of pearl powder over her pink cheeks. + +She came straight over to the fireplace, "Mr. Napier, I should like to +speak to you a moment." + +Napier lowered his newspaper, "Yes, Miss von Schwarzenberg." + +"I don't know if you gathered yesterday ... the Pforzheims are old +friends of my family." + +"Oh?" said Napier. + +"Their father and my father were brothers-in-arms," she went on in that +heroine-of-melodrama style she sometimes affected. "They have been close +friends since their university days." + +"Really." Napier's calm seemed to detract from her own. + +The color surged into her round cheeks, but she held her head +dauntlessly on its short white neck as she confessed, "Carl and Ernst +have known me since I was a child." + +Napier laid down the newspaper. "Indeed!" + +"I suppose," she challenged him, "you think, that being the case, it was +very odd we should meet like strangers?" + +"Oh, I dare say you had your reasons," he said, as Andrews came in. +Napier walked the length of the hall to where the man had put down the +bag. + +Miss von Schwarzenberg did not move till Andrews had gone out. She did +not move even then, until Napier found his keys, selected his duplicate, +fitted it to the lock, and at last threw back the leather flap and drew +out the letters. + +That instant, as though she had only just resumed control of her +self-possession, Miss von Schwarzenberg, handkerchief in hand, moved +softly down the hall and stood at Napier's side. It came over him that +this wasn't the first time that she had executed this simple +manoeuver, if manoeuver it was. He knew now that he had been +imputing to his own attractiveness her invariable drawing near while he +transacted his business with the letter-bag. The little pause before +Andrews left the room he had set down as a concession to the +proprieties. More than ever--so he had read her--if she laid traps for +little talks with the private secretary, was it important that the +servants should not be set gossiping. But now, with an inward jolt, he +asked, had he been making an ass of himself? His hand, already inserted +a second time to draw out more letters, came forth empty. He noticed +that her eyes were on it as he turned the palm of his hand toward him, +fingers doubled and nails in a line. He studied them. + +She studied the letters already lying in an unsorted heap. They seemed +not to interest. She pressed her handkerchief to her lips and raised her +eyes. "I would have told you before--only--only,"--her beautiful mouth +quivered and her eyes fell again--"you ... are difficult to talk to." + +"Am I?" said Napier, in a tone of polite surprise, still studying his +nails. + +"For me. Yes.... You make it difficult. Why _do_ you, Mr. Napier?" + +That man must have a heart of stone to resist an appeal so voiced. +"Perhaps you imagine it," he said, taking refuge in pulling out the rest +of the letters and sorting them into piles. + +She stood as though too discouraged to continue, too listless to go +away. But when, in the midst of his sorting, Napier glanced at her, he +discovered no listlessness in the eyes that kept tally of the letters he +was dealing out. What earthly good does it do her to read the outsides +of our envelopes? he wondered. + +"I've been unhappy," she went on, "most unhappy under my enforced +silence. I've wanted so much that _you_ anyhow should know the truth." + +"I don't know why I especially--" he began. + +"No, no, no!" she said a little wildly, in spite of the hushed softness +of her tone, "you don't know. And it's a good thing--a good thing you +don't. But I'm too unhappy under the innocent little deceit that's been +forced on me. You see, we had quarreled, the Pforzheims and I. That is, +_they_ quarreled. They each wanted to marry me. Oh, it was dreadful! +They wanted to fight a duel...." + +"About...?" Napier laid a long official envelope on the top of Sir +William's pile. + +"About me," she said with lowered eyes. "That was why I went to America. +I couldn't bear it. I said: 'We are strangers from this day!' And +so,"--she pressed her handkerchief again to her lips--"and so we met +like that. I told them I wouldn't stay here an hour if they swerved a +hair's breath from the role of strangers. Now,"--her voice altered +suddenly as though out of weariness after immense effort--"now you +know." + +Napier took out the last letters. "I expect," he said kindly, "it's been +hard enough for you--at times." + +"The strain is frightful." She swallowed and began again. "I--Maybe +you've noticed.... They will write to me from time to time." + +She waited. Napier's face as blank as the new sheet of blotting paper in +front of the great presentation ink-stand. + +"Well, is it my fault?" she demanded. "I've tried to make them see what +an equivocal position it puts me in, how unfair--" her face yearned for +sympathy. + +Napier went on with his sorting. + +"It's too nerve-racking," she said with increasing agitation. "Each one +thinks the other has got over that old madness. But the letters they +write me...! _Frantic!_" She came closer still. She laid her hand on +Napier's sleeve. "Do you know, sometimes I'm afraid...." She drew back, +as a step sounded on the gravel. + +"The Pforzheims!" Napier said to himself. + +But a very different apparition stood there. The girl in the Mercury +cap. Not so blithe as the day before--eager still, but wistful. + +"Why, my _dear_ Nan!" Miss von Schwarzenberg said again, precisely as +she had before. "I told you I would come for you!" + +"Yes, in the afternoon, you said. But I couldn't wait. Don't look like +that, dearest." She had lowered her voice as Miss von Schwarzenberg +joined her in the lobby. "I began to be afraid I'd only dreamed that you +were so near again." + +Miss von Schwarzenberg answered in a voice lower still. Napier gathered +up Sir William's letters and his own. As he went with them into the +library, Miss von Schwarzenberg turned hastily. "I'll just go and see if +Lady McIntyre can spare me two minutes. I'll meet you out there, by the +clump of firs." + +"All right," the girl said quietly, and turned away. + +Miss von Schwarzenberg knew as well as Napier did that Lady McIntyre was +in the breakfast-room looking at the illustrated papers over her second +cup of coffee. But Miss von Schwarzenberg hurried upstairs. + +Ordinarily Napier would have sat reading and answering his own letters +till what time Sir William should come in from his ride. To-day he stood +near the library fire--still seeing that face under the cap. What had +the von Schwarzenberg been saying to her? It wasn't at all the face she +had brought here the evening before. And if Julian Grant had been struck +by the happy faith in its yesterday aspect, Napier found something +rather touching in the hurt steadfastness it showed to-day. + +"It isn't the same face," Napier repeated to himself; and before he had +at all made up his mind what he should do next, he was going through the +hall. + +There she was pulling off her gloves, and holding her hands over the +fire. + +"It _is_ cold," Napier said, and he seized the poker. The flames sprang +up and danced on the girl's face. + +"Oh, _my_! How nice! You are the private secretary, aren't you?" + +"What makes you think that?" he asked, a little on his dignity. + +"Well, the other one was 'Julian,' wasn't he?" + +Napier didn't much like this familiarity with a Christian name on the +part of a stranger. "Yes. I'm Gavan Napier." + +"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Napier." She held out her hand. + +He said nothing, only glanced round the hall in an undecided fashion +after releasing her hand, and then put his letters down on the nearest +chair. "I hope I'm not in your way," the girl said. "You see, I don't +know at all what private secretaries do. You are the first one I ever +met." + +He laughed, and said they were a good deal like other people so far as +he'd observed, and didn't do anything in particular. + +Miss Ellis declared she knew better than that. "That's where you sit, +isn't it?"--she nodded at the big table--"writing your state documents. +And I suppose everybody goes by on tiptoe. And nobody dares speak to +you ... and _of course_ I oughtn't to be here!" + +"Oh, yes, you ought." + +"No. I ought by rights to be out by the firs. But I was cold. I didn't +see why I should wait out by the firs when there was a fire here doing +nobody any good." + +She misinterpreted his steady look. "Oh, my! _you_ think I ought to have +gone out and waited by the...!" + +"Nothing of the sort! I shouldn't have thought half so well of you if +you'd gone out and waited by the firs." + +But the wing-capped head with its overweight of hair turned anxiously +toward the staircase by which Greta had vanished. "I've often heard +Greta say, 'The great thing is to learn instinctive obedience.'" + +"But why on earth should you obey Miss von Schwarzenberg?" + +"Because Greta's the cleverest as well as the most splendid person in +the world." She glowed with it. "And knows more in a minute than I do in +a year." + +Napier laughed at that reason, so Miss Ellis produced another. "And +then, you see, ever since I was quite young I always _have_ obeyed +Greta--when I was good!"--she threw in quickly with a self-convicting +laugh. + +"How long have you known Miss von Schwarzenberg?" + +"Oh, for ages. Ever since I was seventeen." + +"That _must_ have been a long time ago!" + +"Well, it is. It's going on six years. Will it hold me too?" She looked +doubtfully at the brass bar of the fender. + +"Oh, yes," he reassured her, "it would hold ten of you." His smiling +glance took note of the small-boned hands that clutched the brass. From +the delicate ankles and the impossible feet, up to the slim neck, there +wasn't enough substance in her to furnish forth a good British specimen +of half her age. Yet when she stood up she was not only tall, she was +almost commanding. That was partly carriage, he decided, and +partly--well, what was it? + +"The trouble about Greta," she went on, "is that she's a person +everybody is always wanting. Then, added to that, she is the best +daughter in the world. Every year she went home for several months. But +she always got back in time!" The girl smiled an odd smile, not as +though intended for Napier at all. "She always got back (we've often +talked about it) just as I was about to commit some _awful_ mistake." + +Napier was morally certain he could have got her--if only for the honor +and glory of Greta--to enumerate one or two of these timely rescues, if, +by a stroke of rank bad luck, Julian hadn't appeared at that moment. + +"Oh, my!" said Miss Ellis under her breath--which, was silly as well as +slightly irritating. + +With a casual "Hello!" Julian came marching over to the fireplace. + +"You're being very energetic all of a sudden," Napier said, with his +smiling malice. "This early worm, Miss Ellis, is Mr. Grant." + +"I'm very glad to meet you." She stood up and held out her hand. + +"Hasn't it been a splendid morning?" she asked. And did they have many +days so un-Scotch-misty as this? + +They went on uttering banalities about the morning and the countryside, +and smiling into each other's faces. + +Napier sat on the fender-stool, chuckling to himself. Fancy old Julian! +Do him all the good in the world to have a girl looking at him like +that. + +She did so want to see as much as ever she could of "this lovely coast." +Perhaps Mr. Grant would advise her what to begin with? + +Oh, Julian could advise. There was nothing he was readier at. + +"Stop! stop!" the girl interrupted, "I mustn't be made greedier than I +am; for I've only got two or three days." + +"Two or three--! Where are you going?" Julian demanded. + +"Greta thinks London." + +"_London?_" + +"Well, there _is_ the National Gallery, and the old city churches," Nan +said, with marked absence of enthusiasm. "Oh, I don't doubt really but I +shall find it perfectly fascinating.... And then from time to time Greta +will run up for a day or two." + +"It isn't my business," Julian said, in that tone people use when they +have definitely adopted the business in question, "but it sounds to me +the very poorest--" He left it hanging there. + +"Surely," Napier observed quietly, "when you came, you meant to stay +longer?" + +"Oh--yes! when I first came. But, you see, I didn't understand. I +thought being a governess here was like being a governess at home." And +quickly, as though to obliterate any suggestion of odious comparison, +"Perhaps it's because we have so few governesses in California." + +"Well, does that make it different for them?" + +"Well, we give them time to themselves. I--I don't criticize your way," +she threw in, a little flustered to find where she was going--"only +we--Oh, here is Lady McIntyre!" she ended with much relief. + +The manners of the lady of Kirklamont were in marked contrast to her +pinched and chilled appearance. Her fairness was the kind that goes with +a slightly reddened nose and a faint, bluish tinge about the mouth at +this hour of the morning. She was most genial to Miss Ellis, and the +girl was, in her turn, won to ease and confidence. + +"No, thank you, I won't sit down. I didn't _mean_ to stay but half a +minute ... though I'm afraid Greta may think, even now, that I still +don't understand that her time belongs to you." + +"But we are not such slave drivers!" The little lady shook her diamond +ear-rings. Greta could certainly take any day off to be with her friend, +and _every_ day, she of course had several hours at her disposal, +whenever she wished. + +Miss von Schwarzenberg, in the act of descending the stairs, had paused +the fraction of a second. "Oh, there you are!" she threw over the +banisters toward Lady McIntyre. + +It occurred to Napier that the girl standing between him and Julian was +a little uneasy at being found so far this side of the firs. + +"Yes," Lady McIntyre said, "I was just arranging with Miss Ellis that +she must stay to luncheon." + +"And _I_ was just going to ask if you'd consent to _our_ plan," Greta +said as she joined the group. "We thought of lunching at the inn." + +At sight of the smile on Miss von Schwarzenberg's face--still more at +her "plan,"--the slight cloud of dubiety vanished from Miss Ellis. She +stood in full sunshine. + +"But why not lunch here?" urged Lady McIntyre. + +"We want to talk America, don't we? And the old days?" + +"Yes, yes," said her enraptured friend. + +"Well, then,"--Lady McIntyre fell in with what she took to be the +previous arrangement--"you'll bring her back to tea." + +They all saw Miss Ellis to the door, and Miss Greta saw her to the first +gate. + +"I say," remarked Julian, when the lady of the house had also +disappeared, "why shouldn't we take those two girls around?" + +"Sir William. He'd never stand it." + +"No, no! But after. He plays before tea, doesn't he?" + +"Yes, before." + +"Very well, then. We'll take 'em round after. I'll come with the motor." +He caught up his cap. "You arrange it with the Paragon." Julian bolted +off toward the footpath leading to the inn. + +Did she realize that, the woman coming back with the reflective air? +Apparently not. She lifted her bent head, and when she saw Napier was +waiting there at the door alone she smiled. She was certainly very +charming when she smiled. + +"I don't want to disparage the golfing powers of either Bobby or Madge," +Napier said, "but what do you say to a round with me after tea?" + +She looked at him oddly. It struck Napier that she didn't apply her +formula, "You are very kind." He was conscious of a slight embarrassment +under her scrutiny. + +"You say that because Lady McIntyre asked you to." + +"Not only for that reason." + +Whereat Miss Greta lowered her eyes. "What should I do about Nan Ellis?" +she said. + +"Oh, we've thought of that. Mr. Grant will look after her while you and +I--" he smiled. "Shall we say half-past five?" + +The china-blue eyes turned to the open door and to the gaitered +rotundity approaching--Sir William coming up from the stable. "Half-past +five, then," she murmured. On her way to the schoolroom she caught up a +book with the air of one who finds at last a boon long sought. + +Sir William was inclined to be facetious over "catching you and the +Incomparable One. I've always known the day would come...." + +Instead of tackling the letters, he went on with his absurd chaffing. + +"The fact is," Napier said, when he had shut the library door, "I've +been wanting to say a word about this lady." + +"What's up?" Sir William was still smiling roguishly. + +"I'm thinking of the matter of the translation. Surely an official +document of that description ought not to be in chance hands." + +What did he mean? It hadn't been in chance hands. + +It had been in the hands of Miss von Schwarzenberg. And Miss von +Schwarzenberg, Napier reminded his chief, was an outsider. Or, if not +that (hastily he readjusted himself to the McIntyre view) she was at all +events outside the official circle. + +"My dear boy, of course she is. She is a woman. And beyond knowing an +English equivalent for a German word, she understands as much about the +bearing of a paper on International Commerce--as much as that Aberdeen +terrier." + +"I think, sir, you underrate Miss von Schwarzenberg's intelligence." + +"Or maybe you," said Sir William, wrinkling his little nose with silent +laughter, "maybe you underrate the Aberdeen's." + + * * * * * + +Miss Greta did not produce her friend at tea time. "Nan doesn't care +about tea. Americans don't, you know. She will meet us at the links." + +And it so fell out. + +If Miss Ellis didn't "take to" tea, she "took to" golf "as if she'd been +a born Scot," according to Julian. Why on earth Miss von Schwarzenberg +should want to go on trying when the power to hit a ball was so +obviously not among her many gifts, passed Napier's understanding. It +struck him as rather nice of her that she wasn't the least disturbed by +Nan's swinging efficiency. Was that because it got rid of her?--put wide +stretches of sand and gorse between the ill-matched couples? Napier +would hardly have stood it so amiably but for Julian's disarming +frankness as to the satisfaction he, at all events, was deriving from +the arrangement. + +And Nan--planted high above a bunker, hair rather wild, face sparkling +with zest for the game, or for the company, or for that she was Nan +Ellis. + +"_Look_ at her!" Julian said, on a note so new in Napier's experience of +him that he stood silent a moment, looking, not at the girl, but at his +friend. + +Napier was still in the phase of being immensely diverted at the +spiffing progress of old Julian's flirtation--so much better for him +than addling his brains over that scheme of internationalism that was +going to save the world. + +"Look at her," Julian repeated, "did you ever see anybody so, so ... +God's-in-His-Heaven,-all's-well-with-the-world!" + +"Look here, Julian, I hope you're not...." + +"Well, do you know, I'm afraid I am," said his friend. "I don't really +quite understand what it is that's happened. But _something_ has." + +With that childlike directness that was part of Julian's charm for the +more complex mind, he turned to Napier just before the von Schwarzenberg +came within earshot. "There's a fly in the precious ointment," he said. +"This rot about her going to London. Look here, Napier, the von +Schwarzenberg woman would do anything for you. Make her leave the girl +in peace here." + +"Impossible!" Napier said with decision. "How _could_ I ask such a +thing, you unpractical being!" + +"That woman" was too near now for more, and Julian sheered off toward +the figure on the sky-line. + +On the way back to the hall, Miss von Schwarzenberg talked more +intimately than ever she had to Napier. She told him about her home in +Hanover. About her childhood. Her "years of exile." So she spoke of +America. She had a story of how an odious Chicago millionaire had wanted +to marry her. + +"But why do I tell you all this?" + +Napier too had been wondering. + +"It must be," she went on, "because you are a little less 'remote' this +evening, and I am suffering from _Heimweh_." + +In a sturdy, practical tone Napier advised her not to give way to that! +In order to divert her thoughts, "What do you think of ..."--he nodded +to the two on in front. + +"Of what?" said Miss von Schwarzenberg, dreamily. + +"Well, aren't you chaperoning your friend?" + +"Chaperoning!" She came to, suddenly. Plainly she hadn't liked the word. +"We are too near of an age for chaperoning." + +"It's not a question of age, is it?"--Napier extricated himself quickly. +"But perhaps it's only that I don't understand. I never can be quite +sure about Americans." + +"Exactly my feeling," Miss von Schwarzenberg struck in. "They are so +old ... and yet so passionate. Oh, there's more than three thousand miles +of salt water between us of the Old World and the people of the New. +They're a new kind of humanity." + +They found Nan and Julian alone in the hall. As Napier stopped to +unshoulder the golf bag, Miss von Schwarzenberg lingered too. + +"What shall you do in that miserable inn all by yourself the whole +evening?" they heard Julian saying. + +At the sound of the golf clubs clattering into the corner, Nan called +out, "Here they are!" She came running to the lobby. "I wanted to say +good-by, dearest." She pressed Greta's hand. "Hasn't it been heavenly, +learning golf? I never enjoyed myself so much." + +"I wonder," Miss von Schwarzenberg said, smiling, "how many thousand +times I've heard you say exactly that." + +"Oh, have you, Greta? No matter how many times I've said it before, I +never knew what the words meant till this minute. Good-by." + +Julian walked on air at the girl's side. "I say," Napier called after +him, "don't forget you're dining here." + +"Here? Oh, no," said the unblushing Julian. "I'm dining at 'The Queen of +Scots.'" + +"_Are_ you?" said Nan, stopping short. "I was _thinking_ of asking you, +but I didn't know I had." + +"You hadn't." + +"Oh! and do you in Scotland," she laughed, "invite yourself to dinner?" + +"Yes, when it's an inn." + +They went off arguing, laughing. + +The hall seemed to grow suddenly dark. Miss von Schwarzenberg leaned +against the big table as she unwound her scarf. + +"Is your friend given to these sudden--a--these flirtations?" Napier +asked in his lightest tone. + +Miss von Schwarzenberg spoke of "several little affairs." She couldn't +say how far they had gone. "You know the American standard in these +things isn't ours." She spoke of the sanctity, the binding character, of +the German betrothal. + +While this recital was going on, Napier's thoughts were nearer the +Scots' Inn than the scene of the German _Polterabend_. + +Should he or shouldn't he? + +He knew quite well he could prevent this American girl's being shunted +on to the London line. Suppose he didn't prevent it? Julian would never +know how easily Napier could have kept Nan Ellis in Scotland. + +Should he or shouldn't he? + +Suddenly it occurred to him how extraordinarily serious he was being +about this trifle. What could it matter whether this little American +tourist spent a few weeks in Scotland or went to London to-morrow? +Napier knew, looking back, that he had no faintest prevision of the +difference that the girl's going or her staying would make, even to +Julian. And all the same he stood there in the middle of Kirklamont Hall +with the oddest sense of compulsion upon him. + +He must see to it that the girl didn't go. + +"I'm far from being unsympathetic to,"--he moved his head in the general +direction of the "Queen of Scots." "But, speaking of flirtation, I can't +help hoping your friend won't carry _my_ friend off to London." + +Miss von Schwarzenberg's air of dreamy sentimentality dropped from her +as the petals of an overblown rose at some rude touch. She stood bare of +all but the essential woman with never a grace to clothe her. "What on +_earth_ are you talking about? Does she _mean_ to carry him off...?" + +Napier shrugged. "I can only say that it's highly probable if Miss Ellis +goes to London that Mr. Grant will find an excuse for going too." + +"You'd have to prevent that. What would his father, what would Lady +Grant think of...." She stopped there, as having indicated some +unsuitableness even greater than might appear. + +"All the more, then," said Napier, as though she had given out of those +close-shut lips some damning fact, "all the more we ought to keep an eye +on them. But if they are in London--there'll be only one of us 'to keep +an eye'--" She kept both of hers on Napier. "You'd be here," he added, +"and I'd be sweltering in London." + +"You, too, in Nan's train!" + +"Oh, dear, no!" he laughed. "In Julian's, catching up what Miss Ellis +designs to let fall." + +"You, too!" she repeated, as though the calamity were greater than she +could grasp. + +He nodded. "I'd have to. Especially after what you ... didn't say. And +to go to London now would be an awful sell for both of us." + +"For both of us?" she inquired with a little catch. + +"For Julian and me. My holiday begins in ten days, and we were counting +on having it in Scotland. You see," he explained, "we've looked forward +to these next weeks for over a year. We've spent our summers together +ever since Eton days. If Julian goes, I've got to go too. And I should +look on such a necessity,"--he gazed upon the lady as he spoke, with +eyes well practised in conveying tender regretfulness--"I should look on +it as a personal misfortune." + +The stricture about her mouth relaxed. The lips even trembled a little. + +Napier couldn't imagine himself actually making love to Miss von +Schwarzenberg. But he could easily imagine himself kissing that +beautiful mouth of hers. So easily, indeed, that with some abruptness he +turned away. + +It was lucky he had. + +"There she is!" Out of a fiery cloud, Madge McIntyre, on tiptoe, looked +in at the window. Her schoolboy brother, behind her, was grinning. +"Bobby's won his bet!" she called out derisively to the world in +general. The wind of her scorn stirred in her flaming hair. Wildfire +tossed it back to say to her companion, "She has been able to tear +herself away from her American!" + +"I've been looking for you," said Miss Greta, calmly. "Come round." + +"Looking for me! Oh, _my_!" A final shake of the flaming mane, and as if +Wildfire's fury had shriveled her; had burnt both of them up, she and +Bobby vanished. + +Napier made for the library, thanking his stars for the interruption. +What in the name of common sense had he been about to do? To saddle +himself with a flirtation--or a relation of some sort--with this foreign +young woman from whom, with considerable expenditure of skill, he had +kept clear for over a year! + +"Mr. Napier,"--she overtook him on the library threshold--"I can't have +you thinking me ungrateful. I appreciate--_do_ believe me, how +particularly kind and thoughtful--yes, chivalrous, you've shown +yourself--" + +With genuine amazement Napier faced her again. "What--a--I don't +understand...." + +"Oh, I can well believe you do these things--these generous, delicate +things almost without thinking." Before he knew what she was about, she +had found his hand. She was pressing it in both of hers. She held up her +face--or, as it seemed, her lips. He backed away. "I shall _never_ +forget," she said in her intense whisper, "your putting me on my guard +like this. And I may be able to be of use to you before we've done. +Meggie, where are you, child?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The thing happened with a remarkable regularity. An expedition would be +proposed by Julian, vetoed by Greta. Julian would stir Nan's enthusiasm. +Greta would dampen it. Yet Napier soon realized that, if Nan were +determined to come, Miss Greta was equally determined to come, and have +an eye on her. + +So it fell out that the von Schwarzenberg's schemes, first to banish and +later to sequestrate the American, were set at naught through the agency +of Mr. Julian Grant. With a perfectly careless transparency he showed +that no plan of a social nature stood the smallest chance of enlisting +him unless it included the American. Whatever Miss Greta described in +the future, she must have known that at that moment her only chance of +seeing more of Napier was to fall in with Julian's program. After all, +exceptional as her position at Kirklamont was acknowledged to be, she +was far too level-headed an expert to leave her special charge out of +any proposed diversion. Since Madge had to be included, Bobby would come +too--when he wasn't off with the head keeper, or fishing with the +Pforzheims. If "those children" were added to the party, Miss Greta +would be left the freer to cultivate her cautiously conducted +friendliness with the secretary. For the rest, Miss Greta bothered +herself extraordinarily little about the friend who had come so far for +her sake. + +Lady McIntyre and Sir William were everything that was kind and +hospitable. No later than the third morning after the arrival of Miss +Ellis, Lady McIntyre made Sir William stop the motor at the inn and +invite the young lady to dine with them that evening. + + * * * * * + +Poor Julian! It's all up with him, Napier decided, between sympathy and +malicious satisfaction, as the girl slipped her long satin cloak off her +shoulders in the hall. + +Sir William eyed the apparition with the appraising glance of the +connoisseur in feminine good looks. Plainly she passed muster. + +"Well, Miss Ellis, and shall I ask you, as your compatriots do me when +I've been only a few hours in the place, 'What do you think of this +country?'" + +"If you did, I could tell you a-plenty right now. And a great deal more +to-morrow!" + +"Why to-morrow?" + +"Because--" She interrupted herself to go forward upon the flustered +entrance of the hostess. Lady McIntyre's manner was that of the person +so inured to being late that she got no good out of being on time. But +to this manifestation Napier had long been accustomed. What mildly +intrigued him was the manner of the girl. She had put on a different +grace along with her evening gown. Her slower movements had even a touch +of stateliness, as though to match the trailing elegance of embroidered +chiffons. + +"Come now, Miss Ellis," Sir William repeated, "why could you tell me +more about your impressions after to-morrow?" + +"Because Mr. Grant is going to show us a castle. And Greta has promised +to take pictures of it. I suppose you know how splendid Greta is at +taking pictures? You don't? Well, she's every bit as good as a +professional." + +"What castle?" Lady McIntyre asked. "Glenfallon?" + +Miss von Schwarzenberg had come into the hall, with Madge clinging on +her arm. + +"We have some delightful foreigners at Glenfallon. Germans. We owe them +a great debt of gratitude--" Every one there, except Miss Ellis, knew +that Lady McIntyre was going on to tell, as she invariably did to each +newcomer, the story of Frau Lenz and the providential result of taking +her advice. No one knew better than Madge how this repetition bored and +annoyed Miss Greta. When her mother had got as far as "debt of +gratitude," Madge threw in the information that "the old man wore +goggles! And goes scudding about the firth in the dead of night in a +motor launch. Simply bogey, I call it!" + +"It is bogey enough," said Miss Greta, gently, "to be nearly blind and +not able to sleep." + +Julian's entry did not disturb the group at the fire. + +"If they're so kind, those Pforzheims, I wish," Miss Ellis went on, +"they'd take us out in their launch some time." + +"Take us out? Not they!" said Madge. + +"They won't? How do you know, miss?" Sir William pulled Madge's ear. + +"They won't take people out in their boat. Won't even take me. Asked +'em." + +"Meggie!" Lady McIntyre's tone was shocked, but the look she cast round +said, "There's a spirited young person for you!" + +Bobby came in, and Julian joined the others in time to celebrate the +superior attractions of a sailboat over a beastly launch. "I'll take you +out and you'll see!" The person who was apparently to do the seeing was +Miss Ellis. + +Greta von Schwarzenberg caught Napier's eye. "These innocents!" she +seemed to say. It was the sort of cautious interchange that punctuated +the entire evening. It went on across the flowers during dinner. It went +on across the bridge table after dinner. The silent interchange advanced +immeasurably the sense of understanding between Miss Greta and Sir +William's secretary. Perhaps he owed himself this relaxation. Though why +Napier felt something owing, wasn't yet clear to him. What was clear was +the surprise, not unmixed with ironic amusement, of the man accustomed +to be first at the goal of feminine interest, who sees a person commonly +quite out of the running pass him with easy stride. + +Napier found in the unusual experience of looking on at this kind of +scene, instead of playing the chief part in it, something that appealed +both to his sense of the ludicrous and, since the person concerned was +Julian, to his generosity. So good for Julian! + +At dinner Napier had almost pointedly ignored Miss Ellis. She must talk +to Julian. But by no canon of friendship could Napier be asked not to +have a little fun out of the spectacle. It ministered too temptingly +(especially with Miss Greta opposite) to that sense of the ludicrous +which other people's emotional adventures are apt to inspire in us. And +the more acutely and exquisitely is this pleasure provided if either of +the "parties" has hitherto neglected or been deprived of this element in +human experience. Not to know the ropes is to provide amusement to the +old salt. Napier, in the character of the Old Salt upon the seas of +sentiment, sat and smiled. + +It was only when the party broke up that he stood a minute beside the +girl, while Julian discussed his sailing plans with the others. + +"Why do you look at Miss Greta like that?" Napier demanded in an +undertone. + +She laughed a little consciously. "Am I looking at her like that?" + +"Yes. As if you didn't know whether Julian's plan was a good plan till +she'd endorsed it." + +"It's quite true," she answered in a rush of confidence. "I don't always +follow her advice, but I always wish I had. Heavens! the things Greta +has saved me from!" + +"And what were some of your greatest escapes?" + +"Oh, the usual things. Thinking I'd better marry this one, and then +that." + +"But why did you think you'd better marry them?" + +"Because I thought they'd be so awfully hurt if I didn't." She joined in +his laughter, and then seriously: "You must understand they were _quite_ +nice too. I rather loved them, as you say over here." + +"And would you always be ready to give up the idea of marrying anybody +Greta disapproved?" + +"I--don't--know," she said. + + * * * * * + +"Are you really going to motor her to Abergarry?" Napier demanded, after +Miss Ellis' departure. + +"Oh, you heard that!" Julian laughed. "We thought it was a secret." + +"A secret? 'Oh, my, I'd love to see your home!'" he mimicked. "'And is +it really three hundred years old? Oh, my!'" + +"Look here, Gavan," Julian stopped short in the middle of the moonlit +road--"don't say you aren't going to like her." + +"I don't see my way not to liking her," he said grudgingly, "but I felt +to-night, if she said, 'Oh, my,' again, I should probably wring her +neck." + +"What's wrong with it? Bless my soul! It's harmless enough. Some of our +up-to-date young women _swear_." + +"Oh, if _you_ don't mind, I suppose I must put up with it. But, I say, +you aren't going to take her alone to Abergarry, are you?" + +"Why not?" Julian was smiling. "Do _you_ want to come?" + +"I was only thinking," Napier said, "it was rather marked, your not +including the von Schwarzenberg." + +"Why should we always have to lug that German woman along?" The question +came out with uncommon rancor. + +"Nan," Julian went on, already with the proprietary air, "is under the +most complete illusion about the von Schwarzenberg." Something watchful +came into the face he showed to the moonlight--almost suspicious, +totally un-Julianesque. "_I_ thought the reason Nan was going away so +meekly to London was that she was dependent on von Schwarzenberg." + +Napier said that he, too, had received the impression that Miss Greta +was financing her "little friend." + +Madge certainly thought so. But Madge has a way of getting to the bottom +of things. + +She had done it when she came over to say good night to Julian and Nan. + +"Miss Greta was very kind to you at school, wasn't she?" + +"Very, very kind." + +"And she gives you your holidays? Pays your expenses?" + +Miss Ellis stared. "Expenses!"--and then broke into a little laugh. +"Why, no. You are a funny girl." + +Madge threw back her hair. She didn't relish being called a funny girl. +She ached to bring this interloper down off her high horse. "Was it a +very expensive school Miss von Schwarzenberg sent you to?" + +"Sent me--to school? Oh, you haven't understood her. I had my mother to +send me. And she sent Greta, too. Mother used to say,"--Miss Ellis was +still talking more to Mr. Grant than to the girl--"she considered it a +very great privilege to put opportunities in the way of a person like +Greta." + + * * * * * + +Ever since the days of "wet bob" prowess, Julian was at his best, Napier +had always thought, on the water. But sailing was the sport he gave his +soul to. He forgot his troublesome theories, his quarrel with the +world's ordering, and yielded himself with delight to a comradely tussle +with the difficulties of navigation, on a rock-bound, "chancy" bit of +coast, as he called it. + +He looked his best too. The lithe activity of body, the extraordinary +quickness of eye, showed the dreaming gone; instead of it, a mastery in +alertness. His girlish brown hands, endowed with a steadiness as of +steel. + +The person who was distinctly not at her best under these conditions was +Miss Greta. She had opposed the boating plan as long as she could. The +moment she grasped the fact that Nan and Julian, and probably Napier, +were going on the water with or without Miss Greta, Miss Greta saw her +course with characteristic clarity. She adored sailing! It was only her +"sense of responsibility" which had made her hesitate. + +Her sense of responsibility, if it was that, went far to spoil her +pleasure. She had a curious idea that, though the coast hereabouts was +dangerous, the farther out you went the more you tempted fortune. "Those +horr_chi_ble, rock-bound islands!" + +Napier smiled to himself. He did a good deal of covert smiling during +those perfect July days, though he didn't pretend to himself that he was +specially happy. + +The initial reason he gave himself for his state of mind was the +breath-taking speed of your inexperienced person, once he is started. +While Napier had been giving a secretly humorous welcome to Julian's +little distraction, here was that rash youth planning to motor the girl +to Abergarry. The only thing, so far as Napier could judge, that +prevented Julian from introducing the girl forthwith as his future wife +was the trifling circumstance that Sir James and Lady Grant had just +telegraphed to say they would be detained a fortnight longer at Bad +Nauheim. + +There were times when, if Napier had been forced to stand and deliver +the reasons for his secret depression, he would have been inclined to +say they rose, not out of the fact that Julian was probably going to +marry this girl, but out of a growing conviction that she wouldn't "fit +in" in the life over here. She was "crude," as Miss Greta had said. And +she was too independent; too impulsive; too ... what was it? No repose. +You never knew where she'd break out next, either in speech or act. It +wasn't so much that what she said was wrong, or that what she did was +amiss; only both might be unexpected. She kept you on the jump. No +thoroughly nice woman, certainly no wife, should keep you on the jump. + +Curiously, to Napier's mind, Julian was fashing himself on the score of +the influence which Greta von Schwarzenberg exercised over Nan Ellis. "I +tell you," he said one night, "the woman's hold over her is uncanny. +Part of the trouble lies in Nan's sense of loyalty. It's a drawbridge +and a moat and an army--horse, foot, and dragoons. I can't get past it. +It's a thing I haven't so far been able to talk openly to her about. And +there's only one other thing of that kind,"--Julian's face was quite +beautiful in that moment--"she doesn't know yet--unless she guesses." + +"Oh, you haven't said anything yet?"--Napier breathed freer. + +He was only waiting, Julian said, to get one thing clear. Not his +caring! And not any doubt of her. It was only that he couldn't share his +wife with anybody, least of all with von Schwarzenberg. "I've got to +know what that woman counts for." + +"Why don't you find out?" Napier said. His own impatience, his sense of +suppressed irritation at the idea of the Schwarzenberg's uncanny hold, +surprised Napier--though he would have said it was a natural expression +of sympathy for his friend. "_I'd_ find out 'what she counts for' ... if +it were my affair!" + +"I was going to yesterday," Julian said. "I'm thinking I will to-night." + +Napier took out his watch. "Ten minutes to eleven," he remarked. + +"Hang the Schwarzenberg!" Her inventing to see Nan home in the motor +that evening had been a low-down device to cheat Julian Grant of his +rights! + +But all the same here he was, briskly leading the way along the +cross-cut to the inn. "She's often late getting to bed." + +"How do you know?" Napier demanded. + +"Going over the hill, I've seen the light in her window.... Do you +notice," he broke off to say, "how, when we're sailing, Nan always wants +to go farther out?" He waited a moment, eager for Napier's tribute to +the spirit of the girl. "And not foolhardy either!" + +"You are making a very tolerable sailor of her," Napier admitted. + +"Steady as any old hand," the other went on eagerly. "And that woman +always interfering. 'Be careful, Nanchen; leave it to Mr. Grant.' 'We +must turn back now; look how far we've come!'" + +There had been, indeed that very afternoon, a spirited argument, in the +course of which a number of prickly observations were made, chiefly by +Bobby and Miss Greta. With sole exception of the lady, everybody in the +boat enthusiastically--Bobby even violently--in favor of going out to +the Islands. The project was opposed by the one person with a +pertinacity that Julian was sure could mean only one thing. A jealous +woman's determination to preserve her ascendancy. To make a test case. +She's afraid she's losing hold. She must make a stand somewhere. She +makes it at Gull Island. "We aren't to land there if von Schwarzenberg +dies for it. I tell you what it is, Gavan. I'll get Nan out to Gull +Island to-morrow, or I'll know the reason why!" The face Julian turned +to his friend in the starlight was lit with radiances Napier had never +thought to see there. + +"This way." Julian began to tread his way on in front, among the rocks +and underbrush. "I shall go and wait in the gorse by the inn till von +Schwarzenberg takes herself off." + +A sense of utter joylessness fell on Napier, as for a few minutes longer +he kept the pace at Julian's heels. He struggled consciously against the +absurd illusion of being left out in the cold. He, with his hosts of +friends, his hosts of "affairs," scattered broadcast through the last +ten years, the Gavan Napier of enviable worldly lot, had an instant's +keen perception of the externality of all these things. He had never +lived through an hour like this that was Julian's. + +"I'll turn back now," Napier said aloud. The figure in front neither +turned nor tarried. On and on. + +Napier smiled. His friend was hurrying along under the stars toward a +planet mightier for light and leading than any in the heavens--a candle +set in the window of a girl. + +Before Napier had finished sorting the next morning's letters, the +Grants' chauffeur drove up to Kirklamont with a note. + + _Must_ see you before the others come. Car will wait and bring + you to the landing. + + J. G. + +The slight figure was prancing up and down the strip of sand between +encircling rocks. Never a look toward his beloved boat, riding with +transfigured sails at the entrance to the cove. As far away as Napier +could see his friend, he felt the nervous force that was being expended +in that absorbed prowl. + +"I nearly routed you out in the middle of the night," was the way Julian +began. + +"You remember last night, just to prevent me from taking Nan home, that +woman took Nan home herself? Well, she stayed at the 'Queen' a mortal +hour. As if that wasn't enough in all conscience, Nan was for seeing her +home! 'No, darling, no!' I heard the von Schwarzenberg say. And then +with that acrid break in her sugariness, 'I don't want to be taken +half-way!' + +"There was something I lost. Then, 'My dear child,' I heard her say, +'you must allow me here to know what is appropriate, what is expected. +What isn't expected, is that an inexperienced girl, strange to the +place, should be running about dark roads this time of night. You would +be misunderstood. I should be misunderstood if I let you.' Then Nan was, +'_So_ sorry!' and 'Forgive me, Greta!' They kissed. Nan went slowly back +to the inn. Then, instead of turning into the Kirklamont footpath, +Schwarzenberg came up the hill. I laughed to myself to think of her +surprise when she should come across me. But she turned to the left and +cut across the west flank. I thought maybe the woman had got bewildered, +going in unaccustomed places at night. But she wasn't walking like a +bewildered person at all. Do you know what she _was_ walking like? Like +a person who has done the same thing before. She was making straight as +a die for that old shepherd's hut the bracken cutters use. She went into +that hut and stayed there three quarters of an hour." + +"_No!_" + +"And when she came out, Ernst Pforzheim was with her. They came along so +near me that I began to be sorry for them. They were heading straight +for a nasty jar when they should see me. Well, they didn't see me. They +went by not five yards away from the stone pile I was leaning +against--talking hard in German, till I lost sound and sight of them." + +"God bless me!" + +"I'm sorry, Gavan." To Napier's amazement, Julian was looking at him +with pitying eyes. Evidently, he thought, in spite of his friend's air +of humorous detachment, he had been cherishing some genuine feeling for +Miss Greta. + +The idea, especially in view of the revelation, offended Napier's _amour +propre_. "I hadn't thought it necessary to tell anybody," he said, "but +I knew there was--or there had been--a Pforzheim friendship under the +rose." + +"You didn't think it necessary to tell...." + +"I was in the Schwarzenberg's confidence before ... all this. I couldn't +give her away, could I?" + +"You needn't have given her away. The merest hint would have warned me. +You might have thought of Nan!" he burst out passionately. + +"Oh, everybody can't be thinking of Nan, to the exclusion of everybody +else." + +The other man looked into Napier's eyes. And Napier laughed out. It was +so patent that old Julian, newly enlightened as to the part love plays, +had conceived the idea that his poor friend was the victim of a +tenderness for Miss Greta. + +Gavan caught in the toils of a woman like that!--the tragedy of it +softened Julian. His face cleared. The motor was coming back with the +others. + +But the only others who were in the car were Madge, distinctly scowling, +and Bobby, cheerful as usual. "Miss Greta's got a headache. Not coming!" +the boy called out. + + * * * * * + +Julian was in the car as soon as they were out. "I'll go and get Miss +Ellis." + +"You can't. She won't leave 'her friend'!" said Madge, jerking her head +away. + +They didn't sail that day. + +Julian haunted Kirklamont all the afternoon and evening. No sign of +either lady. + +"I shouldn't have thought she would be so obvious!" Julian burst out, as +he and Napier sat smoking at the far end of the terrace. "To stick in +bed all day just so as to prevent Nan--" + +"What's the good? There's always to-morrow." + +"She thinks twenty-four hours will block the business pretty completely, +and maybe even take the edge off Nan's keenness about the island for +good. Anyway,"--his forehead drew up into lines of anxiety--"twenty-four +hours will give her time to draw the reins tighter. She's drawing the +reins tighter this minute." Julian looked up at the pile of Kirklamont, +somewhere in whose innermost Nan Ellis was in attendance on a so-called +sick-bed instead of being, where she ought to be, out sailing with +Julian. "I'll tell you what it is, Gavan,"--he drove a fist into the +palm of his hand. "You may take my word for it I'll get Nan Ellis out to +Gull Island to-morrow somehow. You see if I don't." + +"You said that last night." + +"No. I said last night I'd get her out there or I'd know the reason why. +Well, now I know the reason against it." He nodded toward the two +windows whose blinds were drawn. + +"The reason doesn't seem to mind so much your wandering about the +mainland with her 'little friend,'" Napier reflected out loud. "She +seems to have a special scunner against islands. Why?" + +"Especially against Gull Island," Julian agreed. And he too echoed, +"Why?" + + * * * * * + +To the general surprise, Nan Ellis had risen early and vanished. Miss +Greta had fallen asleep and, opening her eyes at eight--no Nan. The +disappearance exercised a strikingly curative effect upon Miss Greta. +She rose and dressed, and herself conducted a search. "_I_ know!" she +said at last. "Nan has gone to get fresh clothes. She has a mania for +never wearing twice what she calls a 'shirt waist.'" + +Sir William had already left the breakfast table, and every one but +Napier had finished. Still Miss Greta lingered. "She _must_ come +soon--after leaving me like that." + +And come she did; across the lawn, in full view of the dining-room +windows, walking at Julian Grant's side, looking up into his face; +Julian, talking with great earnestness, his right hand, palm upward, now +raised, now lowered, with that weighing action Napier knew so well. They +parted when they reached the path, and Nan came on alone, "Julian," she +announced with no apparent self-consciousness in use of his +name--"Julian's coming back to take me for a sail, whether anybody else +wants to go or not." + +"Oh, really!" Miss Greta exchanged a look with Napier. + +"Thank you!" said Madge at her prickly pertest. "Since you are so +pressing--" + +"We must wait for the letters!" It was so that Miss Greta, coming out +into the hall, announced her intention of being one of the party. So, +too, she betrayed her cherished hope that Napier might join them. + +"Of course Gavan must go." He, Sir William, wasn't going to be a +spoil-sport! And he announced the fact with a roguish significance that +made Miss Greta cast down her eyes. When she lifted them, there was the +bag. It proved a light post. Sir William tore open two or three +envelopes while he stood there. + +"Anything in the papers?" Miss Greta asked Napier. + +A glance at the outsides of her own letters seemed to satisfy her. Did +she read other people's with the same facility? + +"The papers don't seem to have come," Napier answered. + +"Not come! I wonder why!" She listened while he explained, in the easy +British fashion, "that now and then the fella at the Junction would +forget to throw the papers out." + +"And you stand that? Sir William doesn't get the man dismissed?" + +"What the devil...!" Sir William broke out. Apparently there were things +which Sir William could not stand! One of them was in the letter he held +as he went fuming toward the library, with Napier at his heels. + +"Shut the door! Look here. The fact of that confidential memorandum +being in the hands of the British Government is known. Known in the +Hamburg shipping center, of all things! Here, you see what they say." +Sir William thrust under the eyes of his secretary the highly +disconcerting letter he had just received from the Board of Trade. +"Well--? It certainly didn't happen in _my_ department. Damned +impudence!" Sir William burst out, "to suppose that any of _our_ +people...." He glared at an invisible cross-examiner, "It's never been +out of our hands!" + +"Except," Napier threw in, "to come into the translator's." + +"Translator!" his chief echoed pettishly. Sir William, like many men not +at home in foreign languages, quite particularly objected to being +reminded of the fact. "Translator! They aren't worrying about the +translator. It's what you're here for." + +"I wasn't the translator of that particular document. You gave it to +Miss von Schwarzenberg to do." + +"To be sure! But remembering that doesn't help us." + +"I wonder!" said Gavan Napier. + +"Come, come!" said Sir William. "It's annoying to have secret +information go astray, but it needn't warp our common sense." + +Napier's duty, as he saw it, to try to turn his chief's mind toward a +possible culprit under his own roof was discounted at the start, as the +younger man well knew, by Sir William's chivalrous view of women. That +wasn't really what was the matter with his view, but that was the name +it went by. Sir William had married his butterfly lady for her painted +wings. Finding but little underneath the blue and golden dust, he +loyally concluded that the only difference between Lady McIntyre and +other men's wives was a difference in the hue and the degree of their +gold and blue--or their leaden and dun, as the case might be. + +Even if women were told things, they could never distinguish what was +important from what was trivial, and they forgot as quickly the precise +point as the general bearing. Sir William had lived many happy years in +the comfort of these convictions. + +"I tell you, Gavan, the use of that document would argue a relationship +with affairs quite grotesque to suppose on the part of any woman." + +The thought of the Pforzheims flashed across Napier, bringing a kind of +relief. Miss Greta might quite innocently have remembered and retailed +enough to Mr. Ernst for him to turn to account. + +For the first hour and a half of that memorable sail, the _Kelpie_ ran +lightly before a delicate breeze. An eager girl at the prow, a watchful +woman at the stern, youth and manhood on board--a cargo of fair hopes +borne along under skies of summer to airs of extreme sweetness. It was +the very light opera of seafaring and of life. No faintest hint of the +weightier merchandise--for which mankind takes risks. + +Julian looked back at the receding coast-line. "How gloriously +Glenfallon stands!" He quoted, "'A great sea mark outstanding every +flaw!'" + +Innocent as it was, the comment seemed not to please Miss Greta. She +thought the castle was "probably not so great a 'sea mark' as it looks +to us." + +Julian assured her that you could see Glenfallon tower, "Well, a long +way beyond those cruisers." + +"What cruisers?" All eyes except Miss Greta's swept the horizon. And all +found it featureless, till Bobby picked out a couple of dun-gray shapes. + +Nan looked at Julian with frank admiration. "My! what wonderful eyes you +must have! I can't see a thing!" + +"Pooh! Mr. Grant isn't a patch on Ernst Pforzheim," said Bobby. + +"Oh, you and your Pforzheims!" Julian scoffed. + +With his Scotch tenacity, Bobby stuck to his guns. "All I'm saying is, +Mr. Ernst can do better than see a ship when it's so far away nobody +else knows there's a ship there at all. _He_ can tell you what she is!" + +"Any one with good sight," said Miss Greta, "can be trained." In German +schools, she went on, a study of silhouettes was just part of the +ordinary discipline of the eye. + +Julian was deflecting Madge's course to the left of Gull Island. + +"Oh, _do_ let us go a _little_ nearer!" the girl implored. + +"No!" came from Miss Greta's cushions in the stern; "the ... the channel +isn't safe!" + +Julian began to tell about bird-nesting over there when he was a boy. +And a cave the smugglers had used-- + +"Oh, my!" came the familiar note. "We simply _must_ go and explore!" + +"No," said Miss Greta decisively. "_No!_" + +Napier caught Julian's eye. "Why?" they both asked silently. + +And now even the devoted Nan was ready with, "Dearest Greta, why not?" + +"Because it--it's too dangerous, I tell you!" She had carried a +handkerchief to her lips. Over the handkerchief the eyes looked out to +the Gull rocks, with an expression not easy to define. But Napier felt +as clearly as ever he'd felt anything in his life: she will do something +to prevent those two from wandering away together on Gull Island. What +would she do? What _could_ she do? He lay in the boat and speculated. + +Certainly Miss Greta's conception of her responsibility for the safety +of her charges had produced a curious agitation in that lady. While the +others were arguing, she dashed her handkerchief down from her lips, +that were seen to be trembling, and called out roughly, "_Madge!_ I +forbid it!" + +"Why ... Miss Greta?" said the astonished girl, staring at her altered +idol with wide eyes. + +"You must turn back," said the lady, her bosom heaving. + +Whether Julian didn't hear, or wouldn't hear, Napier didn't know. Nan +Ellis had turned to look at the island. She leaned far out over the bow. +Motionless as a figure-head, she faced the islands and the outer sea. +The wind drowned Greta's protest--it blew the girl's loose hair straight +back--it made a booming in the sail. + +"Mr. Grant, I _refuse_ to let them land!" + +Julian stared at her. Miss Greta made an effort to speak in a more +normal tone. "It's too--_too_ dangerous," she said hoarsely. + +"Oh, very well," Julian said. "They can stay in the boat." + +"Then why,"--her voice rose again--"why are you going so near? You just +want to tantalize them!" + +"They won't be half so tantalized, will you, Madge, if somebody goes and +brings back the news. I haven't been there for a dozen years--nor +anybody else, I should say." + +The boat was cutting through the bright water at a great speed. The wind +sang in the sail. + +Miss von Schwarzenberg half rose. "Stop!" she cried out. "I--I'm +dizzy--I'm sick!" She lurched; she flung out her hands. Before anybody +had time to catch her, or, indeed, had any conception of the need to, +Miss von Schwarzenberg had lost her balance. She was over the side of +the boat. + +Napier sprang to his feet just a second too late. Greta, in five fathoms +of water, was crying for help. + +The first Nan knew of what had happened, Madge was screaming with horror +and Julian was tearing off his coat. But Napier was nearer. Miss Greta +needn't have lifted her arms out of the water as the foolish do, calling +frantically, "Mr. Napier! Mr. Nap--!" before, most horribly, she +disappeared. Napier was out of the boat and swimming toward a hat. He +dived and came up, supporting a dripping yellow head on one arm. + +Julian helped to lift Miss Greta in. They covered her with coats. The +two girls chafed her hands. Julian, silent with remorse, as fast as he +could was bringing the _Water Kelpie_ home. + +As Napier supported Miss Greta down the little gangway, she pressed his +arm. Under her breath, "You've saved my life," she murmured. "For all +that's left of it, I shall remember." + +She wouldn't wait till they could get a motor. In her clinging, soaking +clothes she insisted on walking those three quarters of a mile from the +landing to Kirklamont. + +Oh, Greta von Schwarzenberg was game, for all her pardonable panic at +the sudden prospect of death. Napier admitted as much to Miss Ellis, as +the heroine of the day hurried on before them, nobly concerned to tone +down the story with which Madge and Bobby were so pleasantly occupied in +freezing their mother's blood. + +Nan lingered a moment at Julian's side in the lobby, but it was to +Napier she was talking. "'Peril of death'?" she repeated, under cover of +the repercussions of Lady McIntyre's consternation and thankfulness. +"Why do you say that?" + +"Well, I don't want to make much of the little I did--but suppose I +hadn't been there, and suppose Julian couldn't swim!" + +"But Greta can." + +Both men stared at the girl incredulously. + +"It's none the less good of you--what you did. And very horrid for poor +Greta, with all her nice clothes on--" + +"She can _swim_?" + +"Like a fish." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Upon Miss von Schwarzenberg's reappearance after luncheon, the family +welcomed her with affectionate enthusiasm. Lady McIntyre established the +rescued one on the sofa. Nan Ellis brought a footstool. Sir William +stirred the fire. + +Napier was struck by the picture of amenity and cheerfulness presented +by the group. + +"No, Miss Greta," said Madge, "you needn't be looking round; the papers +_haven't_ come, I'm glad to say. You've got to rest and be taken care +of." She spread the shawl over Miss Greta's knees. Sir William, from the +hearth-rug, beamed upon the scene. + +"Eh? What? Speaking from London?" he said to the servant, who had come +in with a message. "All right." So little was Sir William prepared for +any important communication, he didn't even go into the library to +receive it. He crossed to the telephone on the opposite side of the +hall. + +Napier would probably have concerned himself about the message no more +than Lady McIntyre or Madge, but for the chance that made him aware of +how intently Greta was taking in the swift change that came over the +amiable, fussy, little figure with the receiver at his ear. + +"What? _What?_ Say that again. _When?_ Six o'clock last night? You +don't mean it was official.... God bless my soul! No, not a word. Our +papers haven't come." Then a pause. "How long did you say they'd give? +Not _this_ Saturday? Why, that's to-morrow!" A pause of thirty seconds +followed, Sir William hanging on to the receiver, listening. + +"I'll think it over," he said excitedly. "I'll call you up later. +Good-by." When he had hung up the receiver, he still stood there, +rooted, looking through the wall at some astonishing happening far off. + +"William," Lady McIntyre started up, "it's not about the boys!" + +"Boys? No. God bless my soul! nothing whatever to do with the boys." + +"Oh, only some government matter." With a clearing brow she settled +again in her corner. + +Sir William turned about, and went with quick, fussy, little steps into +the library. + +Napier followed his chief a moment after, only to be told to go and send +a couple of messages. "Hall telephone." Sir William spoke shortly. He +sat, elbows on table, head in hands, staring straight before him at some +staggering vision. + +As Napier stood waiting to get his call through, Miss Greta came over to +the writing-table and took the address-book out of the stand. Madge +hitched herself up on the end of the table nearest the telephone and sat +swinging her long legs. + +"What's up?" she demanded, with her laughing impudence. + +"Is anything up?" Napier asked. + +"There, Miss Greta, didn't I tell you? It's boring enough of _Father_ to +pinch up his lips and go out of the room like that when he gets some +news that would be so nice and interesting for us all." + +"Sir William is quite right. A member of the Government never talks in +private about official business." + +"Oh, doesn't he?"--Wildfire tossed back her mane. "You know perfectly +well Father's discretion lasts only as long as the first shock of any +piece of news. He thinks he's done all he's called on to do when he +doesn't tell us that minute. If you wait, you're safe to hear what it's +all about." + +"My dear Madge!" remonstrated Miss Greta, sweetly. It was taking her a +long time to verify that address. + +Patience incarnate at the telephone having refused to deal with two +underlings in turn, waited now for the station master to be fetched. "Is +that the station master? Well, look here. Is the new express running +yet? Yes, what time? I'm speaking from Kirklamont for Sir William +McIntyre. He must catch that train. Yes, motoring to--Yes. You could +hold it a minute or two, I suppose, if--All right." He had no sooner +rung off, than he rang on. "Give me the motor-house." And still Miss +Greta sat there, till she heard that the new car was to come round in +time for Sir William to catch the four o'clock express at the junction. + +As Napier rang off again, his chief was back in the hall, giving +directions to a servant about packing a traveling bag. Sir William's +family appeared not the least excited at the prospect of the sudden +journey. They were too well accustomed to his bustling ways. But Sir +William himself had the air of being even more wrought up, now that he'd +had time to think over his news, than he had been on receiving it. He +stood frowning and working his eyebrows as the conversation in the hall +died and the company waited for the enlightenment which Madge had +foretold was sure to come. + +"Madness!" He flung it out to an invisible audience. "Madness!" + +"Oh, Ireland!" said Lady McIntyre, certain of the inevitable connection. + +"Ireland? Not at all. Austria." + +Miss Greta, her envelope in hand, had turned about in her chair and +looked over the back of it, her round head slightly on one side in an +attitude of polite attention. Very different from the form adopted by +the ladies of Sir William's own family, secure as they were in their +knowledge that Sir William would unburden himself. + +They seemed disposed to look upon the news, when it did come, as +something of an anticlimax, for Sir William preceded his launching of +the fact with an increased activity of eyebrow and a furious jingling of +seals. "Austria," he said, "has sent an ultimatum to Servia." + +"Oh, is that all?" Lady McIntyre's last lingering fear was laid to rest. + +"Couched in such terms," Sir William went on, "as no self-respecting +nation could accept." + +Miss Greta's air of elaborate deference suffered no change. She heard +that the Austrian Government was plainly composed of a set of +Bedlamites, "scratching matches in a powder-magazine." + +Sir William seemed to have his excitement, his anxiety, all to himself, +till Mr. Grant came in with Nan Ellis. Even then, Sir William had only +one person with whom to share the graver implications in the news. + +You'd say Julian neither heard nor saw the girl he had been frankly +adoring as they came in. Question after question he fired at Sir +William, rather as though that gentleman were responsible for the +_impasse_. "_What!_ Servia is to take it or leave it _en bloc_ by +to-morrow night? Why, that means there's less than twenty hours between +Europe and--" he stopped appalled. + +They still called it Servia at this date. + +"Europe?" said Miss Greta, gently. "You mean Servia." + +The butler came in with the belated papers. + +Sir William snatched up the "Times." He glanced quickly at headlines. + +"They don't make much of it," Napier said. + +"Naturally," Miss Greta excused them. "They are full of their own +difficulty." + +"What do you call their own difficulty?" Napier asked, as he paused to +turn the paper. + +"Why, Ireland," she answered promptly. + +Napier found himself looking at her. + +"There are some sane people even in Ireland," Sir William threw out over +the top of his paper. "But this--this Austrian madness. No warning, no +parley; a pistol to Servia's head!" + +Julian's voice over-topped Sir William's. "It amounts to the abject +humiliation of Servia--or war." + +"Servia will accept Austria's terms," said Miss Greta, quietly. + +"Never!" Julian shouted. "All the chancelleries of Europe will join in +protest." + +Sir William paused in his trot up and down that end of the hall. "If +Russia goes in, Germany can't stay out. This time to-morrow Europe may +be ablaze." + +The supposition, sounding through those piping times of peace, rang +fantastic. Napier remembered, long after, how he had looked round +Kirklamont hall and saw that apart from Sir William there wasn't a soul +there who believed in the possibility of war, except one. That one--Miss +Greta. + +"Monstrous as it would be to force Servia into political slavery," +Julian admitted gravely, "there would be one thing worse." + +Nan at last lifted her voice. "What would the worst thing be?" + +"War," answered Julian. + +"What, what!" Sir William caught him up. "There are worse things than +war, young man." + +"There's nothing worse than war. Fortunately, we've reached a place +where the mass of the people know that." + + * * * * * + +As the awful prospect unfolded, people were not appalled, though they +said they were. They weren't even unhappy. They were far too excited. +And to be excited about matters of world-wide importance is to be lifted +out of the petty round and to catch at the crumbs of greatness. + +Napier went up to town with Sir William. At close quarters with official +minds, the younger man shared those hours of anxious hope, bred by the +earlier interchange between Petersburg and Berlin, London and Belgrade. + +Still, and without ceasing, though too late, as was seen in the +retrospect, England worked for peace. + +Not even the formal declaration of war on Servia, made by Austria on the +Tuesday following that fateful Friday, arrested the effort of the +British Government to avert the catastrophe. + +Five days after the ultimatum discussion in Kirklamont Hall, the German +demand was made for British neutrality and the first shots were fired at +Belgrade. + +Julian's letters in those days registered merely the seething and +boiling in the caldron of his separatist soul. His horror of the +Mittel-Europa plot, as it began to unroll, was lost in his horror of the +spread, the deliberate inflammation, of what he called the "war cancer." + +Napier flung the letters into the waste-paper basket and forgot them. +But as he went about his work, transmitting cryptic telephone calls or +hurrying to and fro with confidential messages, all incongruously a +girl's face would flicker before him like a white flower before the eyes +of one running at top speed through danger-haunted woods at night. + +Those were the hours when Great Britain was pressing the most momentous +question ever framed by diplomacy: Was France, was Germany, going to +respect the neutrality of Belgium? Then the moment when France cried, +"Yes," and Germany's silence was louder in the instructed ear than roar +of cannon. + +Sir William had sat in the war councils, and hour after hour sat in +smaller groups, laboring with the best minds to find a way to stay the +spread of the contagion. When Sir William came to a place where nothing +more could be hoped for or immediately be done, he found that, for the +first time in his life, he was unable to sleep. Country air, home, if +only for a single round of the clock. + +They came back to Kirklamont to find, in outward seeming, all unchanged. +The fact struck sharply on the strained senses of the two men who drove +up from Inverness toward noon on the first Monday in that fateful +August. Late Saturday night Germany had declared war on Russia, and +France was already invaded. + +In the hall at Kirklamont Lady McIntyre sat with her family, her Russian +embroidery, and her boarhounds. She came to meet her husband with, +"William, dear! And what's the news?" + +Madge ran, her red hair all abroad, to embrace her father. Bobby, on the +point of going upstairs, changed his mind. + +Sir William met interrogation testily. + +Gavan Napier's first impression on entering the hall had been of the +still intensity of Miss Greta's gaze; perhaps he was the more struck by +it because it wasn't on himself. On Sir William. As she closed the book +she'd been reading aloud and rose, the look was gone. Amid the heats of +midsummer and of war she stood cool, pearl-powdery, sweet, with a smile +for Napier now, and an expression of deferential welcome for Sir +William. Miss Greta left to other folk all worrying questions aimed at +jaded and travel-worn men. + +No, Sir William wasn't going to sleep till after luncheon. But he was +hot and dusty, he would go up.... + +They would have tackled Napier, but he, too, escaped hard upon Sir +William's heels. + +As Napier followed his chief down three quarters of an hour later, a +laugh floated up. Nan Ellis. + +She and Bobby sat on the sofa, taking and giving lessons in the tying of +sailors' knots. She looked up carelessly enough at Napier's appearance. +"How do you do? Do you know any good knots? I thought you wouldn't." + +"She is prettier than I remembered," he said to himself. + +Sir William, on the hearth-rug, showed a man already refreshed. + +"What's this about the papers?" This raised voice commanded the hall. + +"Yes, my dear William, for the third time. That was why we had to try to +get our news from London. But they were horrid, yesterday, about telling +us anything. It's not very pleasant,"--Lady McIntyre revealed her +conception of the use of war news--"when neighbors call, expecting us to +know the latest, and find we haven't heard a word since Saturday +morning." + +"Well, then,"--Sir William filled the hiatus with a single sentence--"at +seven o'clock on Saturday evening Germany declared war on Russia." + +Instantly the hall was full of hubbub. The excitement bred by that +tremendous fact reached even Lady McIntyre. "Dear me! I wonder what the +Pforzheims will say to that. They _will_ be astonished." + +Miss Greta went through the motions of surprise. "Has it really come?" + +Napier, observing her narrowly, said to himself. "She knew." And then, +"How did she know?" + +Julian Grant came hurrying in with excited face. Before he had spoken to +anybody else or so much as looked at Nan: "Tell us, Sir William; it's +only in the country, isn't it, that people are talking wildly about +England being mixed up in this horrible business?" + +"People talk everywhere," Sir William said crustily. + +After Sir William's rebuff, Julian had gone over and sat down by Nan. It +was Miss Greta who did the talking. + +Napier saw her leaning across Nan to engage Mr. Grant. Most gentle she +was, ingratiating. As he strolled nearer, Napier heard one or two of her +leading questions, put with an air of having no idea how straight they +went to the heart of the matter. + +"Oh, you think that? I should _so_ like to know why." + +Sir William, pretending not to listen, pretending to talk to Madge, lost +no word; neither Julian's denunciation of the idea of England's +interfering, nor Miss Greta's, "Well, it would be quixotic. And whatever +her enemies may say, England is not quixotic." It was the kind of little +compliment with a sting in its tail that Miss Greta could deliver with +an innocence that must, Napier decided, console her for many an enforced +piece of self-suppression. + +"'Quixotic!'" Julian began to tell how much worse it would be than that. + +Fury rose in Sir William. Napier saw it getting into his eyebrows. Miss +Greta saw it, too, Napier could have sworn. Oh, she knew perfectly what +she was about. "It _is_ difficult,"--she supplemented Julian's +assurance--"very difficult, to see how England could come in, with civil +war ready to break out at any minute. She would be sacrificing herself +for what?" Miss Greta inquired in her suave voice. + +"The statesman who would advocate it," said Julian, "would be committing +suicide." + +Sir William swung round. "You're wide enough of the mark _this_ time." + +"You don't mean--" + +"Our obligations to France--" Sir William began. + +"What obligations?" the young man demanded. "The country hasn't endorsed +any obligations." He jumped up and faced Sir William on the hearth-rug. +"If behind our backs they've gone and committed us--" Julian's dark eyes +flashed a threat of dire reprisal. Provisionally he wiped the floor with +those (including, all too flagrantly, the Laird of Kirklamont) who +might, "in their colossal ineptitude, want to commit this nation to +war." + +"That's _your_ opinion," said Sir William, growing bright red under the +friction. "You seem to think we have no right to ours." + +Julian halted an instant before the problem. "How much right _has_ a man +to the wrong opinion?" Upon the answer to that, he knew, had hung much +of the history of politics and religion. In another mood Julian would +have maintained, till all was blue, that an intelligent bricklayer had +as much right to a voice in the policy of the country as a peer of the +realm. None the less, in his heart of hearts, as Napier was whimsically +aware, Sir Julian felt that, for all Sir William's official position, he +_hadn't_ any such valid right to press his views as had a Grant of +Abergarry. Between mirth and consternation, Napier realized that this +was the key to the renewed outpouring. It was not so much Julian, but a +Grant, very properly telling a McIntyre things good for him to know. + +In the heat and fury of the discussion which she had so adroitly +precipitated, Miss Greta stretched out a hand and took up her knitting. +She sat there with bent head. + +"Who? The democracy of England!" Julian was crying to Sir William's +angry, "Who is going to prevent?" + +"If politicians don't know that, they'll learn it to their cost. English +participation in this war is impossible." + +"So little impossible," Sir William barked back, "that we'll be in it up +to the neck." + +There was a moment's hush in the hall, before everybody, except Miss +Greta, began to talk at once. Miss Greta never lifted her head. She did +not so much as lift her eyes. Napier saw that she was following the +success of her ruse with an intensity that held her hands immovable, as +though the rapid fingers had been caught, tied fast, in those +"field-gray" filaments she wove, as though her palms had been skewered +through by the shining steel of her long needles. They stuck out at +right angles, seeming to transfix the rigid, death-white hands. + +"Never! never!" Julian had cried out at the top of his voice. + +"And if we weren't in it," Sir William shouted, "we'd be wiped off the +map. What's more, we'd deserve to be." + +"I tell you," Julian vociferated, "England will never consent to be +dragged into this quarrel." + +"England won't be dragged in. She will go in because it would be a shame +to keep out. She _is_ in!" + +Napier sat damning himself with uncommon vigor. Idiot! that he hadn't +foreseen the Von Schwarzenberg's agile apprehension of this new use to +which Nanchen's lover might be put. Too late the realization that her +baulked eagerness for official news had made her egg on Julian to engage +his fellow Scot at their real "national game"--which isn't golf at all. +Debate's the name of it. Those two played it with passion. Nothing could +stop them now. Sir William trumpeted at Julian, and Julian skirled +wildly back. The hall was in confusion. + +"You said England never _would_," Nan cried across to Miss Greta. + +"I said she wouldn't be so ill-advised," was the barely audible answer. + +The shell-shock of Sir William's bomb had shaken even Greta von +Schwarzenberg. From that first impact she recovered her mental poise at +a price. Her face was white with the cost of it, or under the tension of +some immediate decision. It suddenly came over Napier: she wants more +than anything on earth to warn the Pforzheims. + +She made a slight movement. It brought the clock within range. Five +minutes to luncheon time. "Five minutes," Napier said to himself, "in +which to get the news to Glenfallon," if he didn't prevent her. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +It suddenly flashed over Napier that he might learn more by letting her +communicate with the Pforzheims than by preventing her. A highly +important conclusion about Miss Greta herself might thus be reached in +the only possible way. And the harm done by the Pforzheims knowing? The +die was already cast. The German Government knew that. The whole world +would know it in a few hours. The Pforzheims couldn't even gamble on the +tip. The stock exchange was closed. + +There was yet another consideration very present to Napier's cautious +type of mind. Suppose he were mistaken as to the woman's designs. Such a +mistake, besides being intensely disagreeable to any one of decent +feeling, would "do" for you with the McIntyres. Undoubtedly would "do" +for you with Nan. + +All the same, an expressionless intensity of the Schwarzenberg's +stillness, in the midst of the hubbub all about her, kept the observing +mind alert. + +She stirred, she half rose. In the midst of his excitement, Napier +caught himself smiling faintly. He caught himself, because Miss Greta +had caught him. + +"Devil take her acuteness! She wouldn't be sitting down calmly at the +luncheon-table if she didn't know I had my eye on her," he said to +himself. He might as well have said it aloud. She smiled at him across +the board. The china-blue eyes were as hard as big alley marbles. She +raised her cider-glass to her lips. + +Nan turned to her impulsively. "Do you still think--" She stared at the +smashed tumbler and the cascade down Miss Greta's pink frock. + +"Oh, Nan dear, my new dress!" + +"Me? Do you mean--did I do that? Oh, my! I'm most terribly sorry!" + +"If I sponge it off instantly--" Greta rose. Nan rose. + +Madge rose. "I'll help you," she said. + +"Certainly not!" Miss Greta cast back a look not to be mistaken, and +hurried off, holding her skirt out in front of her and looking at it +with a very passion of concern. + +Should he bolt after her? Ridiculous! How could he dog the steps of a +woman going upstairs to sponge her frock! + +Should he go outside and waylay the messenger? He hadn't even the +flimsiest excuse, except one that wasn't producible, unless he could +catch her red-handed. To catch her sending a note to Ernst Pforzheim, +what would that prove? Wouldn't any of us in her place want to share +such tremendous news with our compatriots, let alone with a lover? + +She was away less than eleven minutes. Napier timed her. When she came +back she had on a different skirt and a subtly different expression. +Whatever had been on her mind as well as on her dress, she had got rid +of both. The others still argued and speculated. The staggering news was +new to them. Curiously, it was already old to Napier, old and grim and +implacable. He shoved it wearily aside. While Miss Greta's head was bent +and she thought him covertly eyeing her, Napier drank refreshment out of +the face at her side. The little girl from over the water, what was it +she did to him? The mystery of these things. + +Napier took Julian out on the terrace to cool off, though he said it was +to smoke. "I say, day and night for over a week I've heard nothing but +war. Talk to me about something pleasant," he said. It was a plain lead, +but Julian was a mole of a man. + +"What do you call pleasant in a world like this?" + +"Oh, several things." From where they sat they could see Nan Ellis under +the trees at the entrance to the park, and Wildfire flying back and +forth through the air--as Nan urged the swing. + +Napier remembered that, in all the heady talk before and during +luncheon, Julian had hardly looked at the girl. When she spoke he didn't +hear. Napier sat now studying his friend. "Don't say I didn't warn you. +There's one person who'll be precious tired of all this war-talk if it +goes on." + +Julian lifted absent eyes. "Nan? Not a bit of it. You don't know Nan. +Whenever I stray to personal affairs, it's, 'Come and show me on the map +where Luxemburg is,' and, 'Just where have they crossed the French +border?'" + +"I suppose you're not by any chance so taken up telling her where the +Germans are in France that you don't know whereabouts you are with +America?" + +He _didn't_ know. He'd been waiting till he could see his way clear to +detach the girl from Miss Greta. And then this appalling business-- + +Napier's silence seemed to convey to Julian some hint of an unspoken +arraignment. She had written to her mother, he said, in extenuation. +"Yes, about me. She is devoted to her mother. Yes, I've been thinking it +over. You see, the Germans--" + +"God bless my soul! Let's leave the Germans to stew in their own juice +an hour or two!" Gavan got up and walked back and forth in front of the +two garden chairs and of the man left sitting there. More than by any +previous extravagance of Julian's, some of the things he said at +luncheon had angered Napier. They fairly made Sir William choke. They +were of a character to make Sir James Grant incline to choke the +speaker. _That_ was the knowledge which opened the door to the fear that +clutched at Napier--fear of himself. Fear of the temptation revealed in +this growing conviction of his, that if he let Julian drift on the new +tide that was sweeping in, it would carry him away, far beyond the +securities, the privileges of a favored son of the old order. Almost +certainly it would carry him away from Nan Ellis. Whether an illusion or +not, Napier felt that he had only to sit there in the other chair and do +nothing, to see Julian blindly "do for" himself. As he walked up and +down, Napier discoursed upon woman. + +"You mean," Julian said, with the air of the docile disciple receiving a +brand-new doctrine, "you mean that, in spite of feeling sure of +her--bless her!--you think I ought to get something definite settled +this afternoon?" + +"You certainly ought to find out where you stand. You _can't_ let it +drift." He knew that what he really meant was that _he_ couldn't. He got +up and walked away toward the loch. + +On his way back, Julian was coming with that nervous step to meet him. +Well, he'd spoken to her. She admitted she was fond of him. "But I don't +want to marry you," she had said. "I told her," he went on, "that I +couldn't believe that. Fortunately for me, for I didn't see how I could +bear it. 'You don't want to marry _any_body just now?' I suggested. And +what on earth do you think she said?" + +"How do _I_ know!" Napier returned irritably. + +"She said, 'Well, I'll just see about that! You mustn't go pulling me up +by the roots to see how I'm growing,' she said. 'It puts me back.' And +then I very nearly took hold of her. But all I did was to sit tight and +say: 'Which _way_ are you growing, Nan? If _I_ can't find out, I'll have +to get Gavan to.' 'You'd ask Gavan!' And she looked so startled, I +laughed. 'So you don't want Gavan to know how you behave,' I said. I +wasn't surprised!" + +He brought it out with an incredible lightheartedness. If underneath his +surface equability Julian was really agitated, shaken, torn, it was not +on the score of his own and Nan's future. It was for the immediate fate +of Europe. He swung back to it as they came in sight of the hall. "I was +thinking as I came along that our diplomacy for the last twenty years--" + +A servant crossed the lawn to meet them with two telegrams for Sir +William. + +"And the telephone, sir. Sir William left word that you--Yes, London, +sir." Napier hurried back to his post. + +Tommy Durrant was at the other end--a message for Sir William from the +Prime Minister. Napier wrote it down. He'd ring Tommy up before six. Any +more news? King Albert's letter, asking for the support of England, had +been read in the House with immense effect. "In spite of some labor +opposition, they'll vote the credit to-night; you'll see. If the German +fleet molests the French, we'll be on hand!" cried Tommy along the wire. +"Army? Mobilizing over night. Kitchener's back from Egypt." + +Under the renewal of the hammer-strokes, Napier's sense of a world +blindly driven to some incredible doom gave to the family group, when he +rejoined it, an air of unreality. And this in spite of the fact that +Miss Greta did not make the mistake of ignoring the subject which in all +minds usurped the foreground. + +She made her own little contribution with an air of engaging frankness. +"If the war were going to be fought out on sea, the British fleet, of +course--But you wouldn't say yourself, would you, that the British were +a military people?" + +"Not in the sense that Germany is," Napier agreed. + +"In no sense at all," said Julian. + +"But Germany! Every son of Germany is a soldier!" Miss Greta's tone was +just a trifle too superior. + +But wasn't she right? Even the Pforzheims. They, too, were soldiers. +These friendly, slightly ridiculous neighbors underwent in Napier's mind +a sudden and violent transformation. They stripped off their stage +tweeds, their check shirts, their superabundant jewelry; they stood in +uniform. Severe, infinitely _praktisch_, six foot, each, of formidable +enemy. + +After tea there was a general movement. + +"Coming for a stroll?" Julian stood looking down at Nan. + +"Yes, but it _is_ cold toward sunset in this Scotland of yours. I must +have my jacket." + +"Oh, well, where is it?" he demanded, with a touch of his absent-minded +impatience. + +She looked at him. "_I_ don't know. In the coat-room, perhaps. You'll +find it somewhere." + +"Do you think I shall?" he questioned dubiously. "What's it like?" + +"Well, of all things!" She sat up very straight. "You mean to say you +never noticed? It isn't the _very least_ like anybody else's." + +"Oh, I dare say I'll remember it all right when I see it." Julian +retired meekly to the coat-room. + +Nan brought her eyes down from the florid, gilt molding above the window +to the level of Napier's face. + +"You look worried," she announced. + +"I am worried." + +"Just about the war--nothing particular?" + +Yes, there was one thing in particular. "One thing I can't honestly say +I'm happy about." His speech slowed under the quick shifting of light +and shadow in her eyes. What did she think he had been going to say when +he began that brought that darkening as he ended, "I can't honestly say +I am happy about Julian." + +"About _Julian_!" + +"Yes. He tells me you and he aren't engaged, and he doesn't know why." + +"Is that all you've got to worry you?" + +"Doesn't it seem to you enough to justify any friend--" + +She was dumb. + +Napier took refuge in a rapid survey of Julian's character and +advantages. + +"Do you know," she broke in, "you're talking to me about Mr. Grant as if +you were recommending a chauffeur. He belongs, I gather, to a reputable +family; he's steady; he was a long time in his last place; sober, very, +_very_ sober! But I really don't need any testimonials to Mr. Grant's +character," she wound up under her breath, as that young man emerged +gloomily from the room at the bottom of the hall. + +"I say, there are _millions_ of coats here." + +"Oh, very well, I'll come." + +He _had_ been an ass! The sole gain, as Napier saw it, out of a rather +ridiculous encounter was to establish the fact of the girl's +sensitiveness for Julian's dignity. + + * * * * * + +For Sir William, the Kirklamont charm worked well. Again the next +morning he slept late. There was in consequence rather more bustle than +usual attendant on his departure. Nan Ellis had rushed over early to say +good-by. It struck Napier that she was both grave and excited. She +joined him for an instant at the table, where he stood putting some +papers into the despatch box. + +"Do _you_ want me to?" she asked in a low voice, as though continuing a +conversation. + +"To--" + +"Yes, to marry Julian." Then, quick as the darting of a dragon-fly, she +pounced on his possible answer. "I sha'n't do it--not even for you. But +if that's what you _want_, I'd just like to know." She waited. Napier, +too, for once in his life tongue-tied. + +"Well, good-by everybody. Isn't that lazy dog Bobby down yet?" Sir +William demanded. + +"He's where he always is these days," answered Madge; "gone off to +Glenfallon." + +"Wrong!" Bobby was striding into the hall by the side door. He looked +rather glum for Bobby. + +"Find your friends out of sorts?" Sir William inquired, with his shrewd +look. "Nasty jar for Carl and Ernst, opening their newspapers this +morning." Sir William was not forgetting to keep an eye on the private +case and the summer mackintosh on their way into the car. "Well, what do +they think about the war _now_? Eh, what?" + +"I don't suppose I shall ever know what they think," his son answered. + +"I can't think why you say that, dear," his mother remonstrated. "I +don't find them at all reserved. They talk with perfect freedom to +_me_." + +"Well, they won't any more. They're gone," said Bobby. + +"Gone where?" + +"I don't know. And, what's more, the caretaker doesn't know." + +"You don't mean to say they've gone for good?" Madge sounded a sharp +regret. + +Bobby nodded. "Glenfallon's shut up." + +"But they _can't_ be gone for good. _Can_ they?" Lady McIntyre turned to +Miss Greta. + +"How should I know?" The answer came a trifle too quickly. + +Sir William got into the car. Napier followed him. He leaned over the +slammed door. "When do you say they went?" he asked Bobby. + +"Late last night. Bag and baggage." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Those were the days when all thoughts turned to the fleet. The expected +leave of Jim McIntyre, and of many a sailor son, had been cancelled. +Terrible and glorious things were happening in the element ruled by +Britannia. Only the stern discretion of the Admiralty prevented detailed +knowledge. Maintenance of this self-denying ordinance on the part of the +authorities could not prevent the rumors, which ran about, of a decisive +naval engagement. Lady McIntyre, lying awake at night, distinctly heard +the boom of guns off the Dogger Bank. Her beloved Jim (God keep him!) +was crumpling up the Germans in the North Sea. + +It was something to have Colin home from Aldershot and Neil from +Shorncliffe. The fact that the two young soldiers were granted leave +because they were going off on active service was hidden from their +mother. + +The knowledge brought Sir William post-haste from London. His proud eyes +went from the natty-looking Neil, to the taller, elder soldier with the +ugly, honest face. The father's gaze rested longest there. "If you knew +the trouble I had--I sha'n't try it again. This place is too far away at +such a time." + +Lady McIntyre inquired anxiously for admiralty news. + +"Well, the Turks have got the _Breslau_ and the _Goeben_." Sir William +glanced at his sons. They said nothing. + +"Oh, _that_," said his wife. "I mean about the great North Sea +engagements." + +"The movements of the fleet aren't published." + +"Published! Of _course_ not," retorted Lady McIntyre. "But that's no +reason they shouldn't tell you." + +"Well, I'm afraid they haven't." + +"Nonsense! It's just because you've grown so secretive all of a sudden. +You're nearly as bad as Colin. I _do_ wish Jim would write!" A rush of +tears blurred the blueness of her eyes. Evidently the presence of the +other sons only emphasized for the mother the absence of her sailor. +"Surely, William, you know about the naval battle. Why, I hear the guns +all night long!" + +"In your head, my dear," said Sir William, gently. + +There was a moment's poignant silence. In truth, the reverberation of +those guns of rumor shook all hearts. + +"Well, Neil, go on,"--Madge returned to her low chair at Miss Greta's +other side. "You were telling us about the new army regulations. Go on." + +Miss Greta had fixed her eyes on Napier with that "savior of my life," +expression that he was coming to know. He made an ungrateful return. +"And how is your 'little friend'?" + +"Oh, Nan is well, thank you." + +"She ought to be back by now." Lady McIntyre was making a brave effort +to put away fears for her sailor. "Nan," she explained to Napier, "very +kindly agreed to take the car and do an errand or two which Miss Greta's +slight headache--" + +The thought flashed across Napier's mind of the far worse pang it would +have cost Miss Greta to be away when official news was arriving hot and +hot. She listened now to Sir William's reasons why Liege could hold out +indefinitely. + +Over the shrubberies the winged hat of the girl messenger rose against +the landscape, and again, hardly had the car swerved round to the door, +before, with that same blackbird-over-the-hedge action, she was out of +the car and coming into the hall. "Yes, I did all the commissions, and +in about half the time you said. Oh, Sir William!" She went up and shook +hands. "You see, I am here still." She stood childishly in front of him, +as if waiting for a further extension of playtime. + +"That's right, and you look as if it agreed with you." + +"Oh, it _does_!" She gave her hand to Napier. And then, turning with one +of her quick movements, she found a singular thing to say to a captain +of the Black Watch and a young gentleman who held a commission in the +Seaforths. "I've seen soldiers, Scotch soldiers! They _did_ look funny!" + +"Funny!" said Sir William. The two elder sons turned away their eyes. +Bobby grinned and contorted his legs.... + +"Yes, soldiers wearing aprons." + +"I suppose you mean kilts," said Sir William. "Did you never see--" + +"Oh, yes, of course, on the stage, and in pictures. But these soldiers +had on the funniest little brown aprons _over_ their kilts." + +"Temporary measure," said Colin, slowly. "They'll soon be all in khaki." + +"And it was awfully difficult to get your check cashed." She turned +toward Lady McIntyre. "They say now there isn't any silver left in +Scotland. And in _your_ town there isn't even copper. I hope you don't +mind; I had to take stamps in change. There,"--she produced a roll of +postal-orders--"are what we'll have to use for money now, they say." + +Lady McIntyre protested, but Sir William indorsed the news. Like the +khaki aprons, a "temporary measure." Miss Nan made her accounting. + +"All these horrid little scraps of paper!" Lady McIntyre complained. + +"You can always change them for gold," Neil said. + +"If you do, you must keep it circulating," warned Sir William. "No +hoarding of gold!" + +"But we can't get any more--that's just the trouble." + +"You ought to have asked Miss Nan," said Madge. + +"But I did, and Nan hadn't any." + +"Why, I saw _piles_ of gold on your table when I went up to the inn with +Miss Greta's note yesterday!" + +"Yes; I'd got it out for her--all I had." + +Miss von Schwarzenberg was leaning against the back of the settle. "What +a pity!" she said quietly. "I wish I'd known you wanted gold." + +"But, _dear_ Greta, I _said_--" + +"Did you? I couldn't have taken it in. It's gone now. To a poor person +in desperate straits--A stranded American. That was why I borrowed it." + +"Bor-_ch_-rowed it," she said, with the vanishing "ch" like a ghost of +the final sound in the Scots word "loch." + +Captain Colin was looking at her from under his thick, whitey-yellow +eyebrows--in spite of the fact that his father was talking to him very +earnestly about the tactics of the German Army. Beyond a doubt, +consciousness of Miss Greta's foreignness was growing. Her slight +burring of the "r" had never sounded so marked as it did to-day. For all +her long residence in the States, Miss Greta was far more German than +anybody in the Kirklamont circle had quite realized until the war. And +now very plainly this "Germanism" was taking its place as a bar to +conversation, a something still not productive of hostility so much as +of _gene_. + +"I'd be so grateful, my dear," Lady McIntyre said half aside to Nan, "if +you'd make Greta bathe her temples and lie down." + +"Yes, let us go. All this--" Nan looked round the hall through a sudden +bewilderment of compunction which fell like a veil over her +brightness--"all this is dreadful for you." + +"For me! Oh, no!"--Miss Greta held her head higher than ever--"it's not +dreadful for _me_." She smiled a little fiercely,--to Napier's sense--as +she left the hall, Madge on one side and Nan on the other. + +When Sir William went off with his three sons for a stroll, Lady +McIntyre accompanied them as far as the gate. + +She brought back into the hall a face more agitated than Napier had ever +seen it. Irresolute, miserable, she paused on her way to the sofa where +Napier sat, trying to read. "Colin," she jerked out in a guarded voice, +"has the _strangest_ notions!" The pale eyes looked round more helpless +than ever. "He says Greta tried to pump him about army matters, and he's +sorry he didn't warn Neil! He's going to. Colin said,--oh, in the +unkindest way! 'That woman ought to go home!' 'Home?' I said, 'why, this +is Greta's home!' 'No, it isn't,' he said; 'Germany's her home, and she +ought to go there!' Oh, Colin can be very hard when he likes!" She +choked back her tears, as Miss Ellis came running down the stairs. "What +is it?" Lady McIntyre started to her feet. "Is Greta worse?" + +"Oh, no. It's only Ju--Mr. Grant has got back. We saw him coming across +the--" + +He stood in the doorway. Nan went forward, hand out, welcome in every +lineament, a kind of all-enfolding affection in the forward inclination +of the whole, lightly poised figure. + +Napier looked on dully. + +Though Julian was smiling as he took the girl's hand, she said, with +quick intuition of his mood, "What's happened?" And after he'd come in +and greeted the others, "Aren't they well, your father and mother?" she +persisted gently. "They haven't come? I _am_ sorry! I knew something was +wrong." She folded her sympathy round him like a cloak. + +"It isn't their not coming." He dropped into a chair. "It's the stuff +I've had to listen to in town. And in the railway carriages too. The +colossal tomfoolery--the--the indecent way people were jubilating over +the greatest disaster in history. This is the kind of fierce test that +people go down under. They'd be ashamed to be unfair, lying, and greedy +for themselves. They think it's a merit to be unfair, lying, and greedy +for England." + +Lady McIntyre cast her eye up the staircase, whither her thoughts had +already gone. She was in the act of getting up, when Julian broke out +moodily, "And the way people already are beginning to talk and behave +about the Germans in England!" He had his instances. + +Napier pointed out that, regrettable as these manifestations were, they +were fewer and of a much milder character with us than in other +countries. He spoke of ill-treatment in Germany and Austria of retiring +ambassadors and even of neutrals. He turned to Nan Ellis. "_Your_ +countrymen could tell you a tale of these last days that would make you +open your eyes. Ask your ambassador." + +"If the Germans really did," Julian began; but Napier picked him up +smartly, "You forget, we _know_." + +"Well, well, it's one proof the more, if we needed the more, that war +brutalizes noncombatants as well as combatants." + +Lady McIntyre shook her ear-rings desparingly. "Aromatic vinegar," she +murmured, as she went upstairs. + +While Julian exposed diplomacy and denounced governments, Nan sat, chin +in hand, drinking it in, as if she recognized in these doctrines that +true faith for which all her life she had been thirsting. Under the +subtle flattery, Julian, in spite of weariness, waxed yet more eloquent. +Napier pulled out his watch and made a low exclamation, intended to +indicate some pressing business overdue. He went up the stairs two steps +at a time. And yet the pace wasn't quick enough to please him. Away, he +must get away. Julian had been pitying Colin and Neil, "pawns in the +great game." Napier knew now that he envied them. Oh, that he too might +go and fight! He walked to and fro in his room in the first access of +that fever that was to beset him sore until he should be standing in the +trenches of the Somme. With Julian's denunciation of war nagging at his +ears, Napier hailed war as the Great Simplification. Not only of +international troubles, but of private ones. Instead of ten thousand +struggles, one. + +Well, at all events, he couldn't, as he now realized (and happily, by +reason of the great crisis, he wasn't going to be asked to) stay here in +Scotland and look on at this love-making! War had its uses, even to the +civilian. + + * * * * * + +An hour later he was still sitting there, back to the window, smoking +innumerable cigarettes and trying to read his novel. A light, rattling +sound made him turn round. A fine hail on the window-panes this +cloudless August evening. He looked out. + +Julian was down below with a handful of coarse sand. A sign: Come down. + +What now? + +The hall was empty, except of the footmen beginning to lay tea. Outside +Julian waited. + +"You're off to London to-morrow, too," he began. "Is that the idea?" + +"Yes, that was the idea." + +"Well, then there's precious little time." He was threading a way +through the shrubberies to a half-concealed garden bench. + +"I've been wanting your advice, Gavan. The fact is,"--he smiled as he +made the confession--"I don't know quite where I am." + +"I should have thought you must be in a happier place than most +mortals." Napier sat down on a half-concealed wooden seat. + +Julian joined him with an eager, "What makes you say that?" + +"Well, it must be plain to the blindest she is very fond of you." + +"You think she is?" He sat wondering. Then he presented the grievance +closest to hand. "She wouldn't let me kiss her just now, and I've been +away three whole days." + +"She has let you before?" + +"Yes." + +"As if she was in love with you?" + +"She _must_ be, or else she wouldn't, would she, now? A girl like that?" + +Napier tried to ask if these scenes were of frequent occurrence, whether +they were courted or evaded. The question stuck in his throat. And then, +exactly as if he had spoken, Julian answered. + +"She's a little capricious about that kind of thing. But,"--he turned +trustfully to his friend--"girls often _are_, aren't they?" + +Napier sat there without speaking. "I wondered," Julian went on, "if it +could possibly mean the sort of disapproval that's putting me into other +people's black books--about this devil's mess of a war. But you saw she +took quite a rational view about that." + +"I saw she took _your_ view. As to its being rational--" + +"Oh, well, we won't say any more about that _now_. I've talked war till +I'm sick. I thought I was coming back here to--something I don't find." + +Into Napier's silence Julian dropped the suggestion. "It may only be +that I don't understand women." In his quandary Napier wondered aloud +whether you ever did understand a person brought up in a different +country. + +"Or in your own," Julian said moodily. "People I've known since I was a +baby I begin to realize I've never known at all!" + +"Oh, come, it isn't as bad as that, though we're all of us having our +eyes opened these days. Those Pforzheims now; I'm persuaded they got +hold of the Kirklamont newspapers and kept them back with the express +idea of giving Greta an excuse for getting the official news they +wanted." + +Julian stared, and then he turned his head wearily away. "What rot!" + +The tone nettled Napier. "You seem to have forgotten your own suspicions +of that woman." + +"They were never of _that_ sort, thank God!" Julian flung out. "I didn't +like the idea of Nan's friend carrying on a doubtful love affair--But +that's all pettiness. The awful actualities of war have brought fine +things to the surface in Greta von Schwarzenberg's character." + +Napier told himself that he knew what had been brought to the surface, +and what effect that bringing had had on Julian. + +The spectacle of injustice, or even the danger of injustice, would at +any time make Julian Grant forget his own interests and yours and +anybody's who wasn't being actively oppressed. + +"Have you been to Gull Island since?" + +"I've had no time for picnicking," Julian answered shortly. + +"Well, since you're championing Schwarzenberg, it's your business to see +she isn't made a tool of. You heard how the Pforzheims vanished. I've +wondered,"--Napier found it curiously difficult to go on. There was a +quality--he had noticed it before--a something in Julian's frankness +which put astuteness out of countenance, something that made suspicion +seem not only vulgar but melodramatic. Napier felt obliged to throw a +dash of whimsicality, of confessed extravagance, into the speculation, +"Whether the reason we weren't allowed to land on Gull Island was those +Pforzheims. They may have made an emergency camp out of your Smugglers' +Cave." + +Julian's weary disgust lightened a little. "I had no notion you were so +romantic, Gavan." + +"Very well, then. If you won't look into the matter, I must get some one +else. And set afoot a new crop of rumors. Risk involving Sir William in +responsibility for--" + +"Oh, see here! I'll go, and hold an inquisition on the gulls and +cormorants." + +Napier thanked him a little sheepishly. "Of course I don't expect you to +find anything. I only feel we've got to make sure." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Sir William and Napier returned to London to face those days of +intolerable suspense, when men carried about like a waking nightmare the +new proof that an impregnable fortress was a thing of the past. The +defenses of Liege had failed. A vast system of forts had been pounded +into ruin. Through breach after breach, the German hosts were pouring. +People far away from the scenes of carnage and chaos woke in the night +under a clutch of dread. What is it? What's the matter with life? _The +Germans!_ On and on they were coming, and nothing, it seemed, could stop +them. + + * * * * * + +Then came the Mons retreat and the Battle of the Marne. Belgium was in +ruins, but the German flood had been stayed. Sir William, worn and aged +after a second heart attack, carefully concealed from every one except +the doctor, and Gavan came down from London to spend Saturday night and +Sunday at the place he had taken on the Essex coast. Apart from public +anxieties, Sir William had been subject to the annoyance of questions in +the House, about his chauffeur--a member of his Majesty's Government +couldn't be driven about by an unnaturalized German. A new chauffeur had +brought Sir William from town. + +"Do say you are going to like the house, William, dear!" his wife +implored on the familiar note, before he had time to see anything beyond +the entrance and the drawing-room. "Remember how little time we had to +find anything near enough for you. But talk about it's being a +_furnished_ house!" + +"Great luck to find such a place," Napier reassured her. "How did you +hear of it?" + +Lady McIntyre shook her head, as with an effort to shake some clear +recollection out of the inner disorder. "We heard of so many! But +this--I think Greta saw an advertisement somewhere about this one. I had +to come and do the inspecting because of that silliness about getting a +permit for Greta." + +"Seems all right," said Sir William, rattling his seals as he joined +Napier in the bay-window. + +"Well, you wouldn't have said that if you'd seen it as those people left +it. When I went back to Kirklamont, I told Greta, the hideous +bareness--oh, it would never do! But she simply insisted on my going to +bed." Lady McIntyre smiled at confession of that helplessness which for +long years had, after her beauty, been her strongest card. "Greta said +everything would be all right. You had arranged about the silly permit, +and the very next day she came down, all by herself, and just took +hold." + +Sir William glanced at Napier, as he asked his wife where Miss Greta was +now. + +"She's closing up Kirklamont. That is, she _has_ closed it up. They're +coming at five forty-five, Greta and the children and Miss Ellis. I've +come to like that Ellis girl. And I believe Madge has, too, though she +won't say so." + +Sir William had been walking about, opening doors, looking out of +windows. "Seems the very thing. Capital view, too! I congratulate you, +my dear." + +She beamed, "Don't congratulate me. It's Greta." + +"Even the chairs are just right!" Sir William sank down in one by the +open French window. + +Lady McIntyre laughed, delighted. "It's your own chair! out of the +library at Kirklamont." + +"Never!" said Sir William, staring down at the arms, first on one side +and then on the other. + +"Greta _said_ you'd be glad of your own special chair when you came home +tired!" + +"Well, she's right." He abandoned himself a moment to the embrace of his +old friend. + +"I _knew_ you'd be surprised!" Lady McIntyre pattered on. "_I_ was. I +should have thought of chairs and things myself, if it hadn't been +called 'a furnished house.' And _charged_ for as a furnished house! But +I should never have thought of furnishing a furnished--And even if I +_had_, I should have been appalled at the idea of packing up heavy +furniture and moving it about this way. Linen and silver, of course, and +a few vases, and my china cats, just to give a feeling of home, but a +thing like a great hulking arm-chair _with a reading desk_--!" + +"Yes," Sir William indulged her, "I should as soon have thought of +hoicking up my bed." + +"Your bed has been hoicked up," she triumphed. "Greta didn't forget you +were very particular about your bed." + +"You don't say so." + +"Oh, yes. You said once the reason you'd never been back to Germany was +because of the beds. I was afraid at the time she'd feel that. But you +see how _beautifully_ she's taken it. And what about the war, William?" +she said, in exactly the same tone. + +Sir William was feeling absently for his cigar-case. "Are they still +slaughtering those poor Belgians? Matches? I'm sure there must be +matches somewhere." She got up and looked vaguely about the big room, as +though she expected the matches to come running like a dog that hears +its name called. "Anybody but Greta might forget a little thing like +that. There! I told you so!" she exclaimed, as Napier produced a box +from the far side of the clock. "What do _you_ say, Mr. Napier? Will it +be over by Christmas? Greta is sure it will." + +"H'm! H'm! About Miss Greta,"--Sir William struck in with that same +exchange of glances the name had called forth at the beginning. "Gavan +and I met the inspector of police as we came through the station. New +broom. In a great taking. He'd been hauled over the coals, it seems, by +an old retired colonel hereabouts--fella called McManus. Has a place a +little way down the coast. These retired men are the devil. They don't +know they're retired. This fella McManus got wind of a German lady who +was here for a week and who, he said, went about poking her nose +everywhere." + +"She _had_ to poke her nose to get housemaids and an odd man. But +McManus! _He_ must be an old horror." + +"Well, that's what he said, 'Poking her nose everywhere,' when he lodged +his complaint with the inspector. Very decent fella, the inspector." + +"Lodged a complaint!" Lady McIntyre echoed. "Against a member of our +household." + +"Yes, yes. It's all right. I told the inspector we knew all about Miss +von Schwarzenberg, and could absolutely vouch for her." + +"Here she is," said Napier from the window. + +In another minute Madge and Bobby were bursting in, followed by the +other two. Miss von Schwarzenberg, wearing a new look of subdued +triumph. The American, eager, stirred, smiling in Napier's direction, +and yet far from seeming as happy as the girl adored by Julian should +be. + +Madge and Bobby filled the room with their accounts of the queer +journey, the long stoppages, the waiting for government trains to pass, +and the way the troops seemed to be moving about the country. + +"Miss Greta thought it wasn't soldiers," Bobby threw in. "_She_ says, +coal for the fleet." + +"That was only at first," Madge defended Miss Greta, "before we found +out that we were held up for another--a perfectly _thrilling_ reason! +But it's a dead secret, isn't it, Miss Greta?" + +"The deadest kind," she answered, as she bent her head for Nan to unpin +her veil. + +"_Russians!_" said Madge in a loud stage whisper. "They're sending +_armies_ of 'em." + +"Russians?" Lady McIntyre blinked rapidly and looked at the door in a +perturbed way. + +"Yes, to fight the--" Bobby turned tactfully to his father. "I'll be +bound _you_ know all about it." + +"Not a syllable." + +Madge laughed. "Dear old Daddy!" she said patronizingly. "Well, _we_ +know, so you needn't keep it up. And it's an awfully good dodge. Think +of the surprise it'll be." + +"It would be a surprise, right enough," her father admitted. + +"You see," Bobby continued, to enlighten his mama, "the North Sea's full +of mines, so they've shipped the Russian troops from Archangel, landed +'em in Scotland, and they're rushing 'em through England to the front." + +Whether Sir William had any knowledge of this spirited proceeding or +not, Bobby had plenty. He'd collected impressions on the journey. + +Sir William was occupied in paying facetious tribute to Miss Greta for +her manipulation of beds and arm-chairs. "Eh? what?" he interrupted +himself to say to a footman whom he discovered unexpectedly behind the +barrier of the reading-desk. "Didn't you hear? Tea for these ladies." + +"Beg pardon, Sir William, but there's an inspector of police--" + +"Inspector! What's he want _now_?" + +"He--a--well, sir, he'd like to speak to you for a moment, sir." + +Sir William rose rather testily and went out. He took the precaution to +turn back and shut the door, after the footman had followed him across +the threshold. + +"Well," said Miss Greta brightly to Madge, "I am wondering whether you +will like your room. You'll find it next mine. You remember the plan I +drew?" + +"Oh, yes. I'll go up after tea. Simply ravenous!" + +Miss Greta bent toward the girl. "We aren't fit to sit down to tea." + +Wildfire turned to protest. She seemed to read in the soft face a +resolution no stranger would have detected either there, or in the +words, "I'm going up too, in a minute. I'll come for you." Madge went +quietly out. + +Through the open window only the voices from the next room were audible, +not the words. Lady McIntyre was all too aware of them. + +Miss Greta joined Napier at the window. "Pretty view, don't you think?" +She, too, listened to those accents in the next room. + +As the door opened, her eyelids fluttered, but she never looked round. +The footman was back again with an excuse instead of tea. + +"It's the range, m'lady. It _seems_,"--hurriedly he appeared to +apologize for a stove suspected of an untimely desire for taking a +stroll--"it _seems_ to 'ave gone hout. But the tea won't be long. And +Sir William says will Miss von Sworsenburg kindly step into the next +room." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +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 _Ah_dler. 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." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +When the ordeal at the police station came to an end, every person there +was extremely on edge--except, you'd say, Miss von Schwarzenberg. Her +dignity under the ordeal would forever, Napier told himself, count in +his mind to Miss Greta's credit. Going home, she soothed the ruffled +spirits of Miss Nan; she was tender, reassuring; she smiled. + +Before the party had left the dinner table that night, Julian Grant +walked in. He had arrived late and put up at the Essex Arms. + +"I shall complain to his mother about him when I see her," Lady McIntyre +threatened. They all fell to congratulating Julian upon his parents' +arrival in London. The fact of their belated and difficult return from +Germany had been duly chronicled in the newspapers, together with hints +of the unsuitable treatment to which Sir James and Lady Nicholson Grant +had been subjected. But if, as was plainly the case, some of the +Lamborough party waited eagerly to hear the horrid details, Julian +seemed to have no mind to make the most of his opportunities. + +"I suppose they told you all about it?" Sir William made no more effort +than Madge to disguise his desire to know the worst. + +"Oh, they told me one or two things. It's been no worse for them than +for some of the foreigners over here," was the unfilial answer which +Napier challenged on other grounds. Napier had the facts of the +ill-treatment of English _Kurgaest_ from the Foreign Office. + +Julian lolled in his chair. People made a great deal of a little +inconvenience, he said, especially the type of person who was a +_Kurgaest_. It was a speech that did him no good in that company--being +far too much like a reflection upon a highly esteemed pair of whom their +son should speak with an even greater respect than the ordinary person. + +Napier, who knew Julian's devotion to his parents, was morally certain +that Lady McIntyre was thinking at that moment of those shining lights +of filial duty, Mr. Carl and Mr. Ernst Pforzheim. _They_ would never +cast such a reflection upon their revered Papa as to suggest he was a +little fussy about small comforts. No, it wasn't nice of Julian. + +So little did Julian recognize this, he was asking if anybody seriously +thought inconvenience was avoidable in the vast upheaval of war? He only +wished that inconvenience was the worst that any of them might have to +complain of. A second time he tripped up those "Foreign Office facts" of +Gavan's. Julian knew about those "facts." "And I know certain others. +_They_ relate to ill-treatment too. Facts more easily examined. No +trouble about subjecting those facts to every sort of test! Why? Because +they were nearer home. Yet I doubt if the Foreign Office makes any note +of them. _I_ have--in haphazard way. But enough to sober any man." He +produced two or three. Instances of harsh dismissal at a time when +fresh employment was known to be impossible. Instances of boycott, of +petty persecution, all because of a foreign name. It was the kind of +attempt at sober balancing still possible even under the roof of a +British official. A willingness as yet unshackled to see and to +criticize these spots on the national sun, was accounted an attitude of +mind peculiarly, proudly, British. If this particular circle was readier +than most to admit these minor blames, it was largely because of +sympathy with the particular German who was in their midst. A form of +hospitality. + +To Nan Ellis, Julian's espousal of the cause of the stranger within the +gate was as music in the ear and as honey in the mouth. Good! good! She +applauded him with hands and lips and eyes. + +On leaving the dining-room, everybody began to put on hats and wraps. + +"Oh, yes, hadn't you heard, Mr. Julian? Fearful excitement! A mine has +been washed up on the coast. And you, Madge," urged her father, who +needed no urging whatever, "you've got to come and look at it, too." + +They all went down to the beach, and walked in the moonlight, by the +incoming tide, a quarter of a mile north of the pier. + +Miss Greta carried her coat on her arm at first. _Would_ Mr. Napier be +so kind? He stopped to help her into the voluminous white canvas ulster. +"It isn't true, is it," she said in a low, earnest voice, "that you've +joined an O. T. C. and go drilling in the park after working hours?" + +"Plenty of men do that," he said, struggling to enable Miss Greta to +find the armhole. + +"_Not men like you!_" she whispered. "And when you aren't working with +Sir William, you go route marching, or trench digging for a holiday!" + +Napier had been one of the first of his world who refused to accept the +fact of not being bred a soldier as an excuse for not becoming one. But +that Miss Greta should be one of the few to know the fact did not please +him. "Oh, the sleeve's wrong side out," he said; "that's why." + +The ulster had to come off again. "Surely,"--she turned the sleeve with +deliberation--"surely you know that before you are nearly ready for a +commission, peace will be declared." + +"You think peace will come soon, then?" + +"Well, of course, when the Germans have taken Paris. There now--" she +stopped short again, making of her compunction an excuse to widen the +distance between themselves and the rest of the party. "I've gone in my +bungling way and said something I oughtn't to. I, who would rather +offend anybody on earth than you." + +"I don't know why you should say that." He began to walk on. + +"You don't know why?" + +There was something unnerving in the appealing sorrow of the question. +Why, in the name of all the gods, hadn't he kept up with the others? + +"I think you do know," she said, a pace or two behind his hurrying +figure. + +Napier didn't look round, but he was sure that the tears in her voice +had risen to her eyes. + +"Do you mind if I go on? I promised Julian--" + +"Ah, you've already gone on." + +"Gone--" he paused an instant. + +"Yes, gone back inside that British arctic circle that you came out of +once--to save my life." She gained on him; she was panting at his elbow. +"I shall never forget that, Mr. Gavan; never as long as I live." + +"Oh, you make too much of--" + +"Too much of saving such a life as mine! That may be true." + +"You know!"--he swung back a step--"that wasn't in the least what I +meant. I--you see--I say! _Julian!_" + +When Napier had caught up with the two in front, Miss Greta wasn't far +behind. + +Nan turned an excited face. "Does Gavan know?" she asked Julian. + +Just as though Greta weren't now at his elbow, Julian jerked out, "He +can easily satisfy himself. Two hundred people on the Fourth of August +simply vanished from our common life. No public charge, no trial that +_was_ a trial according to English ideas--" + +"Would you leave known spies free to do their work?" Napier asked +sharply. + +"Do you know what happened to them?" Nan intervened. + +"We can tell what happened to some of them. Set blindfolded against a +wall and shot." + +"How perfectly awful!" breathed Nan. + +"Miss Greta isn't as horrified as you are. She knows what Germany would +do with men--yes, and women--arrested on even slighter evidence." + +"They'd never do that to _women_!" said Nan, aghast. + +"Oh, wouldn't they!" + +"Set a _woman_ against a wall and shoot her!" + +"It's logical," was Miss Greta's comment. + +"Logical!" echoed Nan. "It's--it's devilish." + +"Risky but well paid," observed Napier, with his eyes on the rippled +sand. + +"It should be well paid," pronounced the quiet voice of Greta von +Schwarzenberg. They had come up with Lady McIntyre, abandoned by the +advance-guard. Nan offered her arm. She and Greta adapted their pace to +the older woman's. + +As the two men walked on, Julian spoke of the beauty of ships seen in +that transfiguring light. "Only two or three little fishing-smacks, and +yet the grace, the mystery--" + +Napier's eyes had gone farther seaward. What were those other, vaguer +shapes? Was there a mystery more urgent there? The night was +unseasonably warm, but a chill invaded him as he asked, "Are they +English?" + +Julian, with his hands clasped behind him, strolled on without troubling +to reply. + +It was Napier who again broke silence. + +"It's all very well to scoff at amateur detectives. Have you thought why +_we_ are on the coast?" + +"Good air." + +"And we breathe it just where we could so easily, if we were as +accomplished as some, make signals and receive them." + +Julian uttered the audible sigh of much-tried patience. + +"Well, think a moment. Little as there is of proscribed area as yet, why +are we in it? Because the McIntyres chose this place?" + +"Certainly. Lady McIntyre told me herself about coming down to +inspect--" + +"Exactly!--a house selected for her. We are in the proscribed area +because the enemy alien in the McIntyre family chose this place for +them." + +"I tell you, Gavan, I'm not going to listen--" + +"Yes, you are. I've listened to you often enough. You can listen to me +for once." He told him about the leakage of the shipping secret. The +loss it had been to us. The gain it had been to the enemy. "Old Colonel +McManus is right. She has poked her nose everywhere." + +"All this makes me anxious," said Julian, gravely. + +His friend breathed a free half-minute. + +"Very anxious about _you_, Gavan." + +"See here--" Napier stopped short--"because I was wrong about Gull +Island is no reason--" + +"So you're satisfied you were wrong, are you?" Julian said lightly. + +"Naturally, since you found nothing to report." Then it came out that +Julian had had "more serious things" to think about. He hadn't been near +the Island. It was the first serious quarrel of their lives. + +Napier left his friend and caught up with Sir William. The pressure on +his mind did not suffer him to wait till he got his chief alone. When he +had asked and obtained Sir William's reluctant consent "to a few days +off," Napier broke through the little hail of questions, and commented +with, "Isn't that the mine?" + +"It is! It is!" + +Madge flew on ahead, deaf to Lady McIntyre's, "Wait for your father, +darling,"--as though Sir William's presence might be trusted to exercise +a mollifying effect upon the mine, a theory which, however, she wasn't +long in publicly abandoning. + +Fifty yards or so this side of a rock-strewn indentation in the low +coast-line there it lay, that strange, new creature of the deep, with +nothing in its aspect to account for the instantaneous aversion it +inspired in Lady McIntyre. Gray-white, shaped like a great egg or a +pear, according to your angle of vision, seen at closer quarters it +might be taken for a well-stuffed laundry-bag, except for the something +odd protruding from its mouth. Lady McIntyre made no secret of her +intention to give it a wide berth. As the others went toward the Thing, +Lady McIntyre, left alone some yards away, called out, "I _wish_ you +wouldn't, William!" + +"Wouldn't what?" he said good-humoredly over his shoulder. "I thought we +had come for the express purpose of examining it." + +"Yes, but I--I didn't know it would be like that." + +"You can hardly have expected it to look more harmless," Sir William +said as he went closer. + +"That's just it." Her wail said she wouldn't have minded it half so much +had it been more frankly infernal. "Anyway, Madge mustn't--" Then, with +a rising terror in her voice, Lady McIntyre betrayed the degree to which +she had lost her bearings at sight of that mysterious messenger of +death. "William," she cried, "_make_ Madge come away." + +"It's all right, my dear, as long as they aren't touched. This is the +part, you see--" + +As he appeared to be in the act of doing the very thing he himself had +said was likely to have dire results, Lady McIntyre raised her voice +still higher. "Greta, do, _do_ bring Madge here!" + +Greta, enveloped in a canvas coat and gray-white motor-veil, was +squatting by the enemy. She seemed to hear nothing, as she crouched +there on the sand. The others listened to Sir William, and they, too, +looked at the Thing, all except Napier. He looked at the huddled figure +staring with that curious expression at the mine. It was canvas-covered +like herself. Like herself, of rounded contour and of incalculable +capacity for harm. It struck Napier rather horribly that there was +kinship between the two, that she hung over the infernal thing like a +mother might over her child. + +"Mr. Napier,"--Lady McIntyre's voice shrilled sharply behind +him--"_will_ you get Madge to come away?" + +It was Nan who achieved the impossible. "Brr! I'm cold," she announced. +"If you weren't too grand, Mr. Napier, Madge and I would race you to +those rocks." + +Mr. Napier wasn't too grand, and Miss Madge was elated by her victory. +"I'll race you back again," she cried, again off like the wind. + +They sat down on the rocks where Madge left them. For several moments +there was no sound but the swish and rattle of pebbles as they swept up +shore in the advance, and then, deserted by the force behind, fell back +a little, clinging for a moment to the skirts of the retreating wave. + +Nan, with her white veil cloud-like round her face, looked at the track +of light across the water. The moon wore a cloud round her face, too, +but she looked in and out. The girl was very still. + +"Oh, my dear! my dear!" Napier's heart cried so loud that in a kind of +terror he fell upon audible speech. "It is the most wonderful night I +ever--" and he stopped. His voice sounded strange. As she turned from +the moon-path on the water to meet Napier's look fastened on her, he saw +that her eyes had brought away some of the restlessness as well as some +of the glitter of the sea. The adorable gentleness in them had given +place to a critical, sharp, little glance that affected Napier like a +breath from a glacier. + +"Sir William seems immensely devoted to you--" To his over-sensitive ear +she seemed to imply that being devoted to Gavan Napier implied a +singular stretch of charity. Nor would she accept his silence. As though +he must himself share this view of his scant deserts. "Don't you think +it very nice of Sir William to let you go off on a holiday at such a +time as this?" + +"Very nice indeed." + +She sat with her chin in her hand, her face upturned again. But the soft +rapture was gone, gone utterly. "Julian is looking very tired, don't you +think?" she said. + +"I thought he did look tired." + +"He is going to help Mr. Wilkins. + +"Who is Mr. Wilkins?" + +"Oh, Mr. Wilkins is a splendid person who is organizing stop-the-war +meetings." + +"Well," said Napier, shortly, "that's a good way to give Mr. Wilkins a +taste of it." + +"You mean a taste of war?" She dropped her hand. "Oh, I _wish_ you +wouldn't say things like that!" + +"How I am making her hate me!" he said to himself. "Well, since she +won't love me, what does it matter?" + +But it did matter. It mattered to the very core of him. It mattered to +the waking and the sleeping. It mattered for all of life--he knew that +now. It would add a bitterness to the bitterness of death. To die never +having had this-- + +She sat with hands lying slack in her lap. "I think I'd like to go +home," she said. "I don't like England as much as I did." + +"Why is that?" + +She looked at him oddly and then away. After another little silence, +"Well, for one thing, I think it's abominable the way they are talking +and writing about the men who didn't approve of the war and were brave +enough to say so, and say it publicly." She turned her eyes from the +curling, crisping foam as if to plead for some little sympathy for these +views. There was no sign on Napier's face. She thrust her iron-pointed +stick into the sand. "What they've given up, some of those men, for the +sake of--oh, it's the most splendid thing I ever came near to! I _love_ +those men." + +"All of them?" Napier asked drily. + +She sprang up. "I won't have you mocking at me. Or at Julian!" + +"I don't mock at Julian." + +"Oh, only at me?" She laughed a little uncertainly and then became grave +again, but not, Napier felt, unfriendly. "You know, his father has gone +home to Scotland. His mother, too. And Julian is here." They were +silent a moment. "And I just wish they'd stayed in Germany," she burst +out. "They are horrid to Julian. They've as good as told him they're +ashamed of him. But they don't deserve to have a son like Julian. If he +was _my_ son...." + +Napier smiled. "Well, if he were your son?" + +"I'd know how to treat him. I'd know rather better than I do now," she +wound up, with her astonishing candor. + +Hardly two yards away the inrushing surf foamed as white as boiling milk +among the boulders. + +"How long," she asked, with something breathless in her manner, "before +the tide reaches as far as where we are?" + +"Not long." Even as he spoke, one of those waves that will sometimes +outrace its fellows rushed up the beach and flung itself in thunder +against the outward barrier. In spume and froth it ran whitely in and +out nearly to the upper rocks, filling all the place with motion and a +dazzle of moonlit foam. + +"It seems to set the rocks moving. And the noise! Doesn't it make you +dizzy?" she said. "It does me." + +"Then come higher up." + +She shook her head. He showed a place at his side. "Sit here if you +feel--" + +"Oh, but I _like_ to feel dizzy. That's the great difference between you +and me." Her laugh was gone in a second. With her eye on the receding +wave she asked hurriedly, "Where are you going for your holiday?" + +His plans were dependent on other people, he said. + +"You make me wonder what 'other people' you've got. How little I know +about you." She tumbled the sentences out. + +"Well, come to that, how little I know about you." + +"There isn't anything I'm not willing to tell you--if--if you cared to +know." She spoke more gently, even with a touch of wistfulness. "You +British are so reticent!" He didn't deny the charge. He felt her eyes on +his face, as she said, "I have an idea you wouldn't be--if you once got +started." + +He laughed out again at that shot. "The only safe way then," he said, +"is not to get started." + +"Oh, _do_ get started!" She said it with a touch of roguery lightening +her new seriousness. "I should so like to see you indiscreet for once." + +Deliberately Napier didn't look at her again, till the danger-point was +safely rounded by her saying, "Greta thinks you're going to Scotland." + +"Oh, _does_ she?" He looked at her straight enough now. "And does she +tell you why?" + +"No; but you'll tell me that." + +"Maybe I will," he answered a trifle grimly, "when I come back." + +She studied him. "You are very serious." She leaned a trifle nearer. +"You are more serious, I think, than I ever saw you." + +Napier smiled. In his heart he was thinking: "Before she is up in the +morning, I shall be gone. On the errand that will end even her surface +kindness to Greta's enemy. This is the last time. She will never again +stand so near and look at me with those eyes of faith." + +"Aren't you rather serious, too?" he asked. + +She spoke through his question, impulsively, lifting her voice a little +above the nearing thunder. "Lady McIntyre thinks you are going to see a +lady." + +He made his small effort at jocularity. "I must speak to Lady McIntyre." + +"_Are_ you such a fickle person?" + +"Is that what they say?" + +"They think you are fickle about women." + +"Well," he said, achieving an effect of jauntiness, "and what's your +opinion, Miss Nan?" + +"They don't understand you," she said gravely. + +"And do _you_ understand me?" he laughed. + +"Yes. Because I'm like that myself. They call me fickle, too. But it's +only that we haven't--_hadn't_"--she amended with that sudden summer +lightning in her eyes--"hadn't met The One." If she came closer still, +it seemed not to be by her own volition, but in the same way as she had +spoken--at the bidding of some influence outside them both. Napier half +turned from the too-disturbing nearness and instinctively put out a hand +to the boulder, shoulder-high, just in front of him. But his hand moved +short of its goal, unguided by a mind that was awhirl in a maelstrom +where duties, inclinations, friendships, loves, all churned in an eddy +of such surpassing swiftness that the brain reeled and the heart forgot +its rhythm. + +"Always thinking--but why does your hand shake so?"--the girl's voice +was so low, that he hardly heard it above the surf, as she hurried on. +"Maybe it's this one. No? Then perhaps it's that. And always wrong--till +one day--in the hall--" a very passion of triumph thrilled through her +question, "Wasn't it in the hall at Kirklamont?" + +"_Nan!_" he cried out. + +And she, on a note that the surf took up and carried out to sea, cried, +"Gavan!" On whose initiative neither knew, they were clinging together. +They cared as little for sea water as did the rocks. The two stood there +like one--as if through all the moons to come they would bide as +steadfast in their rapture as the rocks in foam. + +When she drew her face away from his, and they looked at each other, it +was with the knowledge that the wash of a greater sea than this they +stood beside had flung them, companion castaways, on the shore of a new +world. + +She had thrown back her head. The scarf fell down over her shoulder to +her feet, a tiny cascade to join the whiteness of sea water. All veils +had been stripped off for that moment of uttermost joy, before the man +cried sharply, "Julian!" and his arms fell down to his sides. + +"_Julian!_" the girl echoed, aghast. She stumbled back a step. He didn't +try to save her. She fell against the rock. Her hand, that tried to +break the fall, was wrenched at the wrist. She hardly knew it at the +time. + +"Come, let us go back." He was leading her through swirling foam. + +"How can we go back?" she whispered. But she followed him. They found +the others waiting for them by the pier. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +It was not such dirty weather as McClintock the boatman had prophesied. +Though the night was dark and the sky mantled in heavy cloud, the rain +was hardly more than a Scotch mist. That is to say, it was no rain at +all in the terms of the North. On the mainland the temperature was mild +to mugginess. But once away and under full sail, a decent little breeze +carried the boat smartly over the long rollers. + +Napier had taken his place at the tiller. Half-way to the objective, +which had not yet been named, he added to the sense of the importance of +the expedition by proposing to double McClintock's fee as some +compensation for doing without his pipe for an hour or two after +landing. + +Napier anticipated a tussle over this point. McClintock's grunt might +mean anything from pig-headed refusal to whole-hearted agreement. + +"Naturally," Napier went on, with an air of being a deal more easy than +he felt, "when I wanted to overhaul Gull Island, I thought of the man +who took Julian and me there when we were boys." + +"Gairrmans!" remarked McClintock, careful to abstain from the rising +inflection. + +"What! Have you seen something?" + +"Na, na; but I have na lookit." He took the pipe out of his mouth and +knocked the ashes into the sea. "They'll be verra gude at smellin' oot." +It was so he indorsed Napier's generalship, and accepted service. + +The only notice taken of the observation seemed to hint at a further +acuteness for McClintock to reckon with. "I'll tell you the plan in two +words," Napier said, "and then we'd best not be talking for the next +couple of hours." When he'd landed Napier, McClintock was to lie low in +his boat, just offshore, for about an hour and a half, unless one of two +things happened. If McClintock should see a light on the rocks at the +top of the gorge, he might, if he liked, come and see what was up, but +if he should hear a pistol-shot, whatever length of time he'd been left +alone, he was to wait half an hour longer. If, by then, Napier had +neither appeared nor shown a light, McClintock was to get along back to +Kirklamont and raise the hue and cry--an extremity, he was to +understand, which Napier particularly desired to avoid. And that was why +he was going by himself, going with extreme caution, just to establish +the fact that there was no reason why they shouldn't come back by +daylight safely enough and go over the old ground together. For a last +word, Napier remarked that he hadn't forgotten McClintock had taught him +and Julian more than fishing and sailing, and here was a pistol he'd +best keep handy. + +The old man slipped the weapon into the pocket of his reefer as casually +as though it had been another pipe. But he remarked that he was more at +home in these days with a knife, whether for oysters "or whatever." +There was no doubt that McClintock was not only enlisted, but interested +at last. + +He brought his boat softly up on the spit of sand left by the tide, sole +landing-place of this nature on all the little rock-bound coast. The +only sounds abroad were the shrill _keep, keep_, of the sea-pie, and a +swish of wings out of the cliff. + +Without a word being exchanged, Napier went over the side, through a +shallow ripple to the little beach, so narrow as to be hardly more than +a window of gravel at the foot of the cliff. In a sense this was an +advantage once he was piloted safely to the sand spit. He remembered he +had only to hug the cliff till he came to that place--scene of many a +wreck, where the cliff fell sharply in a chaos of boulders tumbling out +to sea. By bearing inland, Napier would cross at its narrowest the neck +of what he used to think looked like the wreckage of a pier. Quite +suddenly he would come into a gentler region, a gradual acclivity that +led through willow and heather and bracken up to the apex of the height +which, midmost of the island, commanded all points of the compass. If +there was an installation, it would be there masked from the mainland, +among the rocks at the top of the gorge. And if the installation was +there, Napier would find it, provided somebody did not first find him. + +The night was warm for September, but till he landed, the wet breeze had +struck cold. Here, on the island, summer seemed to linger. The air was +still full of the sun-quickened scent of pines. The sweetness of thyme +was stronger than the faint bitter of bracken. But these things reached +Napier vaguely. Those admirable servants, his eyes, were well used by +now to this half-darkness; but they could do little for him in +comparison with the two other allies, his hearing and the quickened +power of the humblest faculty of all. As he felt his way with foot and +shoulder, the new significance in contact seemed to extend from living +flesh and nerve to the rattan stick he carried. The soft alternate +strokes, now right, now left advised him of the gorse clumps, of a +solitary stone-pine, or an occasional rock half submerged in coarse +grass and heather. Every few yards he stopped to listen. Yet he got over +the ground with a quickness that brought him a jolt of surprise when, +the ascent grown suddenly steeper and less verdured, he found himself +near the top of the hangar. He had reached the place where the bony +shoulders of the island rose naked above her mantle of green and +heather-purple. + +Though he could see virtually nothing of the wide prospect daylight +opened out from this point, he was too well aware of the prodigies of +vision possible to trained eyes for him to risk showing any faintest +shadow moving on the sky-line. Before he came to the top he was making +his progress bent nearly double; crouching to listen, and then creeping +along on hands and knees. + +The comparatively uniform surfaces of the mother-rock showed no sign yet +of dropping down to chaos. But Napier knew where he was. The tinkle of +water told him. In two minutes he was craning over the lip of the gorge, +staring into the murk beneath him. + +A mere gulf of shadow. + +No man in his senses would venture farther on a night like this, unless +he had in his memory one of those indelible maps that only youth knows +the secret of engraving. It was such a map that Napier turned back to as +he lay there in the dark, getting not only the detail, but the order, +clear again in his head. + +The remembered call of the water came up insistent. Almost Napier could +imagine that he made it out, that nook, a few yards below, which had +always been the boys' first stopping-place. In the driest summer a +thread of pure fresh water trickled out of a fissure in the granite down +there among the ferns. In spring the trickle would swell to a torrent. +It would go boiling over the worn boulders till it plunged down that +last lap in noise and foam into the tiny lake, the small rock basin of +steel-blue water, smiling in the sunshine of memory, but even in that +light set warningly about with nearly perpendicular walls on three +sides. On this southern arc, more terribly furnished still, with rocks +of sharper tooth, calved later from the mother in labor of heat and +frost. + +After quenching their thirst, the boys' next stopping-place would be +Table Rock, a third of the way to the bottom. There they would lie +stretched out to the sun and eat their sandwiches. Then they would crawl +to the far edge and peer over for that dizzy view of the great boss, the +outcrop of granite eighteen to twenty feet below them on the left. By +virtue of place or special constitution, it had possessed a power to +resist the forces of disintegration. It treated the very torrent +cavalierly, for it butted the torrent aside with that Giant's Head, and +then bent leisurely over to look at itself in the lake. + +There were days when the jutting forehead, with its crown of heather and +veil of creepers interlaced, was seen more clearly mirrored in the water +than when looked straight down upon from Table Rock or from the opposite +cliff across the lake. Neither point of view gave one the smallest +inkling of what was under the veil, behind the brow of granite. + +Napier sniffed the wet air for smoldering wood. No whiff, no sound. + +What the devil had been in Greta's mind? The cause of her panic, +whatever it was, no longer inhabited here. Napier would feel his way +down as quickly as due caution would permit, and in less than forty +minutes he'd be back in the boat with McClintock. + +All he had to do was to steer clear of Table Rock and follow the +watercourse till it bore away to the left. Any one who knew his ground +and kept to the right could easily enough let himself down to that +comfortable ledge under the Giant's Head. Sometimes you found bilberries +there. Anyway, you found the niche that sheltered you from rain. And +then you went on to the discovery that took your breath. + +In the old days you waited for McClintock with beating hearts, even if +there were two of you. Gavan eight and Julian seven, would follow behind +the old sou'wester to the end of the curving gallery, where a drop of +some four feet landed you in the irregular-shaped stone chamber where +the smugglers long ago had hid the contraband. How did they get it round +the Giant's Head? you asked, remembering the narrow way. They didn't get +it round. They lowered it over the top. McClintock could show you the +grooves worn in the granite. Good days, those! + +Wet and a little chilled, but without misgiving, Napier let himself down +among the rocks. He began the descent with a swing of the rattan to take +his immediate bearings. Before he brought the stick full circle, he +dropped the hand that held it. What was this against the side of his +knee? He bent down and found his face a few inches from a steel cable, +screwed taut, and straining aslant skyward. His eye followed the outline +of the twisted strand till it met a slender rod planted discreetly among +the rocks. Planted so discreetly that it was completely masked from +observation on three points of the compass and would not easily be +detected on the fourth. Napier could not make out the wire connecting +the farther one of the antennae onto this one above his head; but he knew +that it was there. He knew that he had set his knee against one of the +guys of a wireless. He moved only a couple of inches away from that +significant companionship and stood quite still. + +Was this installation a pre-war dodge, abandoned now? And if not +abandoned-- + +He found himself making his way down with his right hand in his +pistol-pocket. Gull Island was another place with that wand of magic set +up among the rocks. + +He started as violently as if a gun had gone off. Only the vicious +snapping of a dry twig under foot; but, Lord, the racket! His caution +redoubled. + +With horror he remembered that old pastime--rolling the rocks down. How +they bounded and crashed! Across the years he heard again the +reverberant thunder of that long falling. What if he should displace one +of these.... He drew his foot back, trembling from head to heel at the +slight rocking of a boulder. Could he venture down in this darkness? + +Wasn't, after all, the darkness an indispensable part of his plan? He +stood and listened. Behind the sound of falling water there was nothing, +not even a bird's note. The stillness was piercing. Under its penetrant +impact he shrank inwardly. + +What was that? + +Something had sprung out of the shadow. Lord! Nothing but an infernal +rabbit; and the damned fool had dislodged a few little stones. + +Napier sat crouching in the gorge a good four or five minutes after the +last of that pop-popping died. He had pulled off his cap and thrust it +into his pocket. He wiped his forehead. Whew! nothing but a damned +rabbit! + +He listened an instant, and then went on down in the murk and the fine +rain. Suddenly he stood still again. There wasn't a sound his ear could +verify. But he held his breath, while horror moved like a wind in his +hair. + +He wasn't alone. + +How he knew, he couldn't have told. He plunged his hand into his +revolver pocket, braced himself, and waited. Waited while the seconds +passed. Waited till that first strong impression weakened, till he had +silently called himself a few unpleasant names, and had drawn out of his +pocket the cap he told himself his addled pate needed more than the +protection of firearms. He went on in the act of settling the cap firmly +on his head. He had heard nothing, seen nothing, when a blow on the back +all but felled him. He saved himself from falling flat only by plunging +a few paces down the gorge. He managed to recover, and wheeled about, +his hand at his pocket. Before he could get at his pistol, that hand and +the other arm were seized in a powerful grip. His hobnailed boot did him +the instant service of bringing his assailant down on one knee. But +Napier was dragged along with him in those arms of iron. It flashed over +Napier that the aim of this dumb enemy was not so much to kill as to +disarm him. + +It was a battle for a pistol. The conviction grew in Napier's mind that +he would already be lying dead there among the rocks but for the man's +strange caution. He didn't want that pistol to go off; and so they +wrestled in a nightmare of blind silence. Now one, and now the other, +regained his footing and then lost it; and now they both went rolling +down together till the rocks stopped them. And still no word was spoken. + +Twice Napier had his fingers almost on the trigger, and twice his hand +was wrenched away. The last time a thick voice whispered, "_Drop_ it! +Don't you know you're a dead man if you make a sound?" The voice of +Bloom, Sir William's chauffeur! He had got Napier down again; the full +weight of the assailant's body was on Napier's head; his left arm pinned +under him. In that strangling darkness Napier told himself the end had +come. He was dead already. Why was he resisting? He knew why, when he +felt Bloom's teeth on his right forearm. He felt the pistol go from his +bruised side. He heard the drop among the scant herbage of the rocks. + +It was over. Resistance had been battered out of him. He was quite sure +of that. Why didn't Bloom let him alone? Why was the fellow dragging him +down? + +It suddenly occurred to him that they couldn't be far from Table Rock. +_Bloom was going to throw him over!_ + +He had loosed his hold on Napier's shoulder. Breathing heavily, he had +come round and straddled across his victim's body. He fastened his hands +in Napier's torn collar, pulled him up into a sitting posture, and +dashed his head against a boulder. Not quite squarely, for Bloom's foot +had slipped on the wet moss. He braced himself and took fresh hold. In +that second the impotence passed out of Napier's body. His sinews +hardened as he locked his maimed arms round the man. Before Bloom could +recover from the disadvantage of his stooping posture, Napier, in a +spasm of dying energy, had rolled with the chauffeur in his arms toward +the edge of Table Rock. More angry than frightened by the suddenness of +Napier's recovery, Bloom was striking wild. + +"He doesn't know where he is!" Napier said to himself with exultation. +In a very convulsion of insane strength he gripped the panting body of +the German and flung it out over the edge of Table Rock. + +He hung there listening. + +But the blood flowed into his ears as well as into his eyes. No sound +reached him. He tried to crawl back toward the stream. On the way +unconsciousness, like an angel out of heaven, came down and covered him. + + * * * * * + +In spite of the tribute to McClintock's being able to do what he was +told, the old man had no mind to go home at the end of the time +stipulated without knowing something of what was keeping Mr. Gavan. And +so, some three quarters of an hour after that body had shot out into the +void, the fisherman, picking his way cannily down the gorge, slipped on +something soft. His questing hands felt blood, new spilt. A match, lit +in his sou'wester and instantly smothered, showed him enough. He drew +back behind a rock and waited there several minutes, listening. When he +got back to Napier, he had the sou'wester half full of water. He +sprinkled it over Napier's face. He poured whiskey down his throat. Aye, +that was better. Napier was presently able to say that a man who +attacked him had been thrown over Table Rock. The question was, could +McClintock get Napier back to the boat? + +Oh, aye, McClintock could do that same. But Mr. Gavan had best bide +there a little longer; and here was the whiskey-flask to keep him +company. + +Napier sent a whisper of remonstrance after him as the foolhardy old man +went down the gorge. Too well Napier knew where McClintock would be +going. And he hadn't warned him! Poor old McClintock! Napier lay there a +few minutes, and then crawled to the water. He bathed his head and drank +some more whiskey. He tried to stand but couldn't manage that, and went +on hands and knees. He had no clear idea what he was doing. But +McClintock was fumbling his way down there without a notion of the risk +he ran. + +Presently Napier found he could stand, after a fashion. So he staggered +on till the stream turned to the left, and Napier, to the right, was +making his way round the Giant's Head down to the ledge beneath. + +"McClintock!" he whispered, and steadied himself against the rock wall +to listen. McClintock must have gone in! Napier had no consciousness of +making any decision. He merely found himself feeling the way along an +inward-curving gallery when the pitch blackness in front of him opened +on a wedge of light, fierce, intolerable. As suddenly, the light was +gone. + +If he had been quite clear in his head, Napier declared afterward, he +would have prudently retraced his steps. + +As it was, a sense of blind compulsion was on him. For in that dazzling +instant he'd had a glimpse of McClintock. Poor old McClintock, whom +Napier had inveigled into this trap; McClintock, his heavy shoulder, his +sou'wester, and a bristle of beard stamped for an instant on that +blinding, impossible light. Streaks of it still leaked through the +blackness. Napier's outstretched hand came almost at once against +something soft, yielding. A double-felted curtain. He grasped it and +stared through, to find himself standing at the top of a carpeted +incline, looking down into a luxurious room, flooded with high-power, +electric light. In the glare McClintock, with a knife in his hand, stood +not ten feet from a man in shirt-sleeves seated at a table. The back of +the seated figure was turned partly away from the entrance; his head +bent; a green shade over his eyes. He was taking down a message. A metal +band over his crown, ear-caps set close to his head, held him oblivious +to all sound save that which the mysterious forces of nature were +ticking into his ears. + +Not McClintock's wary approach, but Napier's less cautious movement of +the felted curtain, or some cooler air current penetrating the +overheated chamber, was responsible for that slight turn of the +harnessed head. It was Carl Pforzheim! His cry died on his lips as he +tore off the shade. But he couldn't in that lightning instant wrench +himself free of the apparatus, for the cord had become wound round his +neck. He presented a sickening impression of one struggling in a +man-trap, showing, as a wild animal might, a flash of bared teeth as he +strained out across the table and seized a revolver. The shot went +wild. For he had turned to face the descent of McClintock's knife. +Pforzheim fell sidewise against the pink wall of petrol tins, still hung +up by his _apparat_, and dribbling scarlet over the pink. + +They spent the night with the dead body. + +There were two good beds, but only one was slept in. McClintock mounted +guard. In the morning he went out and found the body of Sir William's +chauffeur. He buried him with Pforzheim. + +The den was stocked with supplies, wine, cigars, food, books, cards. +There were very few papers, but they were worth coming for. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Antwerp, in flames from incendiary bombs, had fallen to the Germans, and +hot fighting was in progress between Arras and Albert and from Laon to +Rheims when Napier, not yet recovered from his shooting accident, +returned from Scotland in October. + +At his chambers in St. James' he was told that an urgent message had +come for him from Lamborough. Would he please say nothing about it to +Sir William, who must not be alarmed, but very particularly would he +please ring up Lady McIntyre the moment he got back. + +Before he opened a letter, or even took off his hat, he was listening to +the agitated voice at the other end of the wire. It begged him to get a +car and motor out instantly to Lamborough. "Without telling anybody, +_anybody at all_," that he was coming. + +"I hope nothing has happened to Sir William." + +Sir William was all right, and he wasn't to know. + +"Bad news from the front, is it?" he said with that already familiar +turn of thought to the unintermitting tragedy across the Channel. + +"No, no. Jim was all right. Colin and Neil, too." The distracted voice +assured him, nevertheless, Mr. Gavan was urgently, cruelly needed at +Lamborough. + +"Tell me if anybody is hurt," he said with sudden horror upon him. + +"N--not yet," came back the astonishing answer. + +Everything depended upon his getting there in time. + +All the way he tortured himself with pictures of Nan in some fearful +trouble. By whom else at Lamborough could he, Gavan Napier, be "cruelly +needed"? + +He remembered Julian's speech about her that day of her arrival. "Did +you ever see such faith in any pair of eyes? It's pathetic, a person +like that. Think of the knocks she'll get." + +He cursed the slowness of the car that was going fifty miles an hour. + +"Nan! Nan! I'm coming!" + +For the hundredth time he lived over those minutes among the rocks; that +lightning stroke in the blood; the astonishment of the two victims; the +shame; the silent, shared, effort at retrieval. Hardly two sentences had +been exchanged between them afterward. Yet there had been no conscious +abstention from the luxury of speech. A bewilderment possessed them, an +aching too anguished not to be dumb. + +He had gone away early the next morning without seeing her again. He had +not written. + + * * * * * + +There was no sign of Nan or of any one else, as Napier drove up to the +house toward four o'clock that afternoon. The quickening of his pulses +on the way to the drawing-room seemed to say, "She is here." But the +room was empty. All the house was strangely still, in that brief +interval before word came down. Would Mr. Napier come up to Lady +McIntyre's sitting room? + +"Oh, Mr. Gavan!" As though she were the last survivor of some huge +disaster, a woeful, haggard little lady came forward to greet him. "I +thought you'd never get here. It has been the most dreadful time." She +dropped among her sofa cushions, speechless for a moment. "Even up there +in Scotland," tacitly she reproached him, "you've heard, I suppose, of +the length this spy mania has gone. _Everybody_ with a foreign name is +suspected. Any one who protests, even the most trusted official--openly +insulted--" + +"Oh, really, Lady McIntyre,"--he tried to enfold the poor little lady in +his own reassurance. "I haven't heard anything to suggest--" + +"Then you've forgotten how we lost our dear good Bloom. That was bad +enough. But what has worried William a great deal more are the +questions, though they are asked only in private--'as yet only +in private,' William says,"--Lady McIntyre clasped her thin +hands--"questions about Greta. William has been splendid, so has Julian. +We have all tried to make it--" The delicate face crumpled suddenly. It +seemed to shrivel as the picture of a face might at the touch of fire. +The touch of trouble--consolidator of the strong, disintegrator of the +weak--had found out Lady McIntyre in her safe and sheltered place in the +world. She turned away the quivering little visage and went on: "There +have been letters. Odious anonymous letters,"--she brought her eyes back +to Napier again, the eyes of a hurt child--"about Greta! Poor William +had been getting _horrid_ letters for a fortnight. He never said a +word about them till the wretches began to write to me. And the +neighbors--no, you can't think what we've been through!" The relief of +tears eased the strain. + +"The Scotland Yard people--I've only known that since Sunday +week--they'd already been to William. With absolutely nothing that could +be called proof. 'Suspicious circumstances'--'a girl going out to meet +her lover under the rose.' She told William she was going to marry +him--Ernst; yes. _I_ liked Carl best--such nice teeth. But +anyway--William--they little knew, those Scotland Yard people." + +From confused fragments of overcolored speech, Napier gathered that the +growing epidemic of fear and detestation had only stiffened his chief's +determination to protect the stranger within his gate. + +"You wouldn't have called William a patient man, now, would you? Well, +you ought to have heard how he explained, argued, said all the right +things. You might as well suspect my daughter of being the wrong sort of +person to live under my roof. The lady in question is one of us. I +_vouch_ for Miss von Schwarzenberg." + +Even the child--even Meggy--came to know that people looked askance at +her for having Greta at her side! + +Even Meggy! Napier was ready to swear that "the child" was, after Miss +Greta herself, by far the best-informed person in the house. She was, +anyway, according to her mother, the most indignant. Meggy had made +common cause with Nan Ellis and Mr. Grant in ridiculing and condemning +the popular superstition that every German must needs be an enemy of +England. Napier heard how those three had redoubled their watchful +friendship, a self-constituted bodyguard to keep Miss Greta safe from +any breath of discourtesy, from so much as a glance of unworthy +suspicion. + +A momentary comfort derived from the thought of these champions suddenly +failed Lady McIntyre. The smoothness of her face was broken again, as, +again on the brink of tears, she remembered the villain of the piece. +"The local inspector--that creature who made Greta go to Newton Hackett +without any tea--he came again. Simply wouldn't go till William had seen +him. I haven't often known William so angry. I am afraid he was rude to +the man. It never does to be rude to these people. I've tried being kind +to him. I,"--the tear-faded eyes lifted with a look of conscious +virtue--"I gave him all William's best cigars. And _still_ he hasn't +given us a moment's peace. Of course William flatly refused to send +Greta away. 'Not all the inspectors in England--'" \lady McIntyre +stiffened her slight back a moment with borrowed resolution. Only for a +moment. The next saw her wavering forward with: "Then two men came down +from London to see _me_! Oh, Mr. Gavan,"--she writhed her locked +fingers--"they won't go!" + +"Won't go?" + +She shook her ear-rings, speechless a moment. Then in a whisper: "_At +the inn_, since yesterday. What do you think of _that_?" + +All that Napier thought was Nan! Nan! How much does she know? And how is +she taking it? + +"They must have found out I'd gone to give Boris and Ivan a run on the +sands. Greta and the rest were up on the sea-wall. They never _dreamed_ +that those two dreadful young men, standing there as if they were +friends, pretending to admire the boarhounds, were secret service +people, sent down by the Intelligence Department. And what they were +really saying--at least the one who does the talking! I was thinking +only last night while Julia was brushing my hair--things often come to +me like that--I suddenly remembered that I couldn't--not if I was to be +hanged for it--I couldn't remember a syllable the fat young man had +uttered. It's my belief he's a deaf mute. Well, the other one said, if +something wasn't done _at once_, if I didn't use my great influence with +my husband to have the German lady sent out of England, there would be a +scandal. Everybody would say we had harbored a suspect after we'd been +warned. And when he saw I wasn't going to do what he wanted, what do you +think he called Greta? A spy, who handed on official information to the +enemies of the country! Things have got out that they blame poor Greta +for. Oh, isn't it an _awful_ penalty to pay for her loyalty in sticking +to us as she's done through thick and thin! + +"Well, these secret service men--one _very_ worrying thing about them: +_I_ don't know how to treat such people; they _seem_ to be quite +superior to their disgusting work--well, they pretend that for her sake, +for Greta's, I ought--Heavens above! here they are again!" Lady McIntyre +collapsed against her cushions, breathing heavily and staring fascinated +at the door opposite the one by which Napier had come in. Napier, too, +could hear them now--those footsteps. + +The knock on the door must have been expected and couldn't have been +more discreet, yet at the sound Lady McIntyre lost her head. Instead of +saying, "Come in!" she remarked in a smothered undertone, "I told +McAndrews to bring them up the back stairs." + +The door opened. "Mr. Singleton, Mr. Grindley, m'lady." + +Two young men came in. Well groomed, wearing well-creased trousers, +holding their hats and walking sticks. Singleton, taller, a year or two +the older, was a well-set-up person, with dark mustache, and frank, +hazel eyes. "Where have I seen the fellow?" Napier asked himself, +reading recognition in the guarded smile. They both greeted the lady. + +"_Isn't_, after all!" Lady McIntyre jerked out in a confidential aside +to Napier, upon the supposed deaf-mute's audible salutation. Neither was +Mr. Grindley so very fat either, merely inclined to stoutness. Fair, +slow, slightly bored; his prominent, gray-green eyes seemed gently to +seek vacuity. Whether dullard or dreamer, this was certainly the last +person you would pick out of a crowd for the errand on which he had +come. This plump young man looked at ease, for the reason that he didn't +care, or had forgotten where he was; the other one seemed to be at ease +because he had never, in any place, been anything else. During the +pause, which Lady McIntyre found agitating, Mr. Singleton stood there a +step in advance of his companion, the hands that held his hat, with +gloves tucked in the brim, crossed on the knob of his walking stick. And +suddenly Napier remembered. This frank-looking young man with the long +chin had been sent down from Oxford in Napier's first year. He had done +what he could to shield the culprit, though they had never been friends. + +Napier was the first to move, after McAndrews had shut the door behind +him. It was not mere restlessness on Napier's part, nor detestation of +the business these fellows had come about. He felt he must go and look +out into the front hall. If Nan were to come in suddenly-- + +There was no one. Napier leaned against the wall, standing where, +through the door ajar, he could command the stairs. + +"We heard,"--Singleton in his cheerful, cultivated tones was saying to +Lady McIntyre--"we heard the gentleman you were waiting for had +arrived." + +"Yes, but I--I haven't yet had time to explain." That poor head, which +Lady McIntyre had jerked to Singleton, she jerked now to Napier. "They +want me," she told him, "to search Greta's things. What do you think of +_that_?" As Napier didn't at once say what he thought of it, Lady +McIntyre flung out, "While she's away!" + +Instead of denouncing such a demand, Napier asked, "Where is she?" + +"Oh, they've gone off to see some old church, or something, on the +coast." + +"You don't know where?" + +She shook her head. "How _can_ I remember all the places they go to? A +fresh one every day." + +"Has--a--" Napier caught his tongue back from articulating "Nan." +"They've _all_ gone?" + +"Yes; and they may be back any moment." + +Napier seemed to read in the easy confidence in Mr. Singleton's eyes +that he personally did not look for the immediate return of the party. +But it occurred to Napier that "the party" meant, to the secret service +men, only Greta von Schwarzenberg. It seemed quite possible to Napier's +own fears that, by some perverse stroke, Nan Ellis might return alone. +She might even at the last moment--Fate did play these tricks--have +fallen out of the party. In one of the rooms overhead she might be +meditating descent. How else could he account for that all-pervading +sense of her presence which filled the house? And he was the only one +who knew how much, how infinitely, worse it would be if Nan were to come +in and find them--He glanced sharply through the crack of the door. + +"I have been explaining,"--Mr. Singleton seemed to invite Mr. Napier's +cooperation--"since Lady McIntyre is so sure the view held by the +Intelligence Department is mistaken, that it's a kindness to the young +lady to embrace this opportunity to clear the matter up." + +"Imagine the shabbiness of such conduct!" Lady McIntyre appealed to the +figure listening by the door. "I am to take advantage of her absence to +rummage among her--" + +"No, no," Mr. Singleton protested. "You take advantage of the one and +only chance of proving her innocent without hurting her feelings. It can +either be done quietly without the least scandal, or be done with a +publicity much less considerate. _I_ should say, if the lady were a +friend of mine--" + +"Yes, I've heard your view," said Lady McIntyre, with nervous asperity. +"It is Mr. Napier's I have waited for. Can you,"--she stood up wavering, +miserable--"can you see me giving permission to a strange man and his +confederate"--she jerked a glance toward the silent, absent-minded +individual at Singleton's side--"to break open Miss von Schwarzenberg's +trunk and--" + +Mr. Singleton, wholly unperturbed, assured Lady McIntyre there need be +no breaking open. He had, as she said, "most fortunately, a--"--Mr. +Singleton smiled pleasantly--"an assistant who was in his way a genius +at avoidance of breakage or any sort of violence." + +The fastidiousness with which he repudiated "any sort of violence" +plainly gave Lady McIntyre pause. Even in the thick of a thousand +agitations it was noticeable how great a part was played in the +persuading of the lady by the voice and manner of the agent, +particularly by the voice. Its natural timbre, its accent, its curve and +fall, all connoted the moral decencies, as well as the external fitness +and refinements, of good breeding. If you suspected this man of +baseness, you simply gave away your own unworthy thoughts. The reticent +dignity with which he uttered the phrase, "for the sake of the safety of +the country," that of itself seemed to range him on the side of +defenders in the field. + +Helplessly, Lady McIntyre waited upon the guidance she had sent for. + +"Have you had official warning of this visit?" Napier asked her. + +"No." + +"There are reasons," Mr. Singleton reminded him, "as you must see, why a +warning would defeat the purpose of the visit." + +"You have a warrant for this search?" + +He had. He produced it. An order under the Official Secrets' Act. "If a +mistake has been made, Mr. Grindley and I," he said, as he returned the +document to his inside pocket, "can assure ourselves of the fact and be +out of the house in half an hour. Unless Lady McIntyre should, +unhappily, be too long in making up her mind,"--he glanced at the clock +on the mantel-piece--"neither the German lady nor any one outside this +room and the Intelligence Department will ever know of the +investigation. Isn't that better than the alternative?--having it +conducted in public?" + +The bribe was great, yet great was poor Lady McIntyre's misgiving. Men +of another class would have stood no chance of overcoming her scruples. +Oh, the Intelligence Department was not so blundering as some would have +us believe, since upon a presumably very minor case it could expend this +patience and finesse. + +Lady McIntyre fluttered to the guarded door. "I couldn't let them do it +with no one here." She clung an instant to Napier's arm. + +He and Singleton glanced up and down corridor and stair, as the three +men followed Lady McIntyre's lead into a room at the end of a passage. + +The first thing noticeable about the little room was its air of +distinction, bred only in part by the taste shown in the choice of +certain articles of furniture, culled, Napier was sure, from other parts +of the house during that week Miss Greta had spent alone here. Not her +knowledge of values in _Moebeln_ alone, but something less obvious, in +the serene, uncrowded aspect, in the exquisite orderliness, lent the +little room its special air. + +Singleton walked straight to the window. It commanded the approach to +the house and looked upon the sea. It wasn't till a moment later that +Napier verified this fact. On the dressing table, which stood out two +feet or so in front of the window, his eyes had found a faded +photograph. It showed a girl in her teens at another window. Two long +plaits fell over the sill as the eager figure leaned out to greet, with +all that joy and affection, the woman whom Napier was here to convict of +felony and to cover with disgrace. No need of the signature under the +sill to say the girl was "Miss Greta's ever loving Nan." + +That first cursory glance about the room had seemed both to please and +intrigue Singleton. His face wore the look of intentness, of subdued +satisfaction, with which your sportsman addresses himself to a game he +knows he's good at. + +"He likes ferreting things out! He _likes_ it!" Napier said to himself, +as Singleton swung back with one of his easy movements and turned the +key in the door. + +"What will Greta think when she tries it and finds it locked, and _me_ +in here!" Lady McIntyre bemoaned to Napier. + +"Oh, but she won't," answered Singleton. He nodded toward the window. +"You'll see her coming." He laid down hat, stick, and gloves on the +small table by the bed, and picked up a book lying there. He read aloud +the title, "Pilgerfahrt by Gerhard," for Grindley's benefit, apparently, +for he looked at that person interrogatively. "With Nan's love," he +added, as though that might fetch Grindley. + +But Grindley seemed to have neither literary nor sentimental curiosity. +By the tall gilt screen set against the angle of the opposite wall +Grindley halted, as if he had forgotten why he was there and felt +unequal to the mental effort of recalling. You'd say he no more +realized that the leaves of the screen were turned back so as almost to +meet the angle described by the wall, than that the panels were composed +of exquisite engravings after Fragonard, set in old gilt. Even when he +moved a pace or two, you would say that he was speculating whereabouts +in a room so scantily, albeit so charmingly, furnished as to boast only +a single chair, should he find a place whereon to lay hat and stick, and +the small despatch-case of the same color as the brown clothes he wore. +Whether for that reason, or because of the inconspicuous way in which it +was carried, Napier had not noticed the case till Grindley set it down +against the skirting of the wall, along with hat and stick. + +For those first moments, glued to the window, Lady McIntyre alternately +watched the avenue leading to the house and watched the two strange men. +She made no effort to disguise her perturbation at not having two pairs +of eyes, the better to keep her poor little watch upon "dear Greta's +things." "You don't, I suppose, expect to find anything contraband on +her dressing-table," she said, as Singleton paused to run his eye over +the glittering array. "You may know that's all right when I tell you Sir +William and I gave her the toilet set last Christmas." + +Singleton stooped to the faded photograph, an act as offensive in +Napier's eyes as the next was in Lady McIntyre's--his attempt to open +the little, inlaid bureau. + +"That is her writing-table," said the lady, with dignity. "Of course +it's locked. An engaged girl always locks her--" + +"Yes; this, Grindley," Singleton said. And Grindley, moving like a soft +brown shadow, was there with some bits of iron hanging keywise on a +ring. Some of these slender "persuaders" were notched and some were +hooked. There were also one or two pieces of wire. + +Lady McIntyre identified these objects instantly in a horrified whisper +as, "Burglar's tools!" + +"Or that, first?" Singleton interrupted, with a nod at the screen. + +"Yes, it's her box behind there," Lady McIntyre said, and clasped her +hands. "But if you break _that_--a most queer lock--you can never mend +it. And she'll know what we've--" + +Mr. Grindley gave a slow head-shake. "American wardrobe trunk," he said, +as though he had been tall enough to see over the close-set screen, and +took no interest in what it hid. He inserted a steel object in the lock +of the writing-table, and opened a flap as easily as if he'd had the +key; more easily than if Lady McIntyre had had it. + +"Her private letters!" she murmured with horror. "Love letters!" + +Far more offensive, Napier was sure, than if Grindley had fallen upon +the neat packets and loose papers with greedy curiosity, was the bored +cursoriness, as it looked, of the inspection. Perhaps the other man was +really going to read them through when he had--heavens above! What was +he doing in Greta's cupboard? + +"Disgraceful!" said Lady McIntyre under her breath. Singleton was +passing his hands along the row of skirts neatly hung at the side. The +investigating fingers reached those other garments suspended at a +greater height. From supports, hooked upon a bar set overhead, depended +afternoon and evening gowns--the pink cotton, the black and gold, the +lemon-colored--all of familiar aspect, and yet in this collapsed state +odd-looking, defenseless, taken at disadvantage. Napier with some +difficulty recognized the apple-green silk, all its sauciness gone, as +dejected now as a deflated balloon. And this stranger's hand upon them! + +"Disgusting familiarity, _I_ call it. He'll be feeling in her pockets +next," Lady McIntyre whispered tremulously. "I don't know how I can bear +to be here." + +Napier himself was too aware of a Peeping-Tom unseemliness in looking in +upon these privacies to stand there watching. He turned again to the +glittering dressing table and the treasure it enshrined. What wouldn't +he give to be able to slip that photograph in his pocket? Nan looked at +him out of her window with unsullied trust. + +Napier glanced nervously out of the other, the window behind the +dressing-table. While he had been watching Singleton and looking at the +pictured face, Nan might easily have come into the house; for Lady +McIntyre, too, had clean forgotten that side of her sentinelship. + +Napier turned round, so palpably listening, that even Lady McIntyre in +the midst of her agitations saw what must be in his mind. + +"Yes, _any_ moment they'll be in upon us!" She fled again to the window. + +"Grindley, here!" Singleton called from the cupboard. + +But Grindley had found something, at last, which, though it seemed not +to interest him, had proved itself worthy to be abstracted. Not one of +the love letters, as Lady McIntyre plainly feared. It was nothing more +exciting than Greta's French dictionary. Grindley came away from the +littered bureau, holding the flat volume open in his hand, and turning +the leaves at random. + +Singleton joined him. "What have you got there?" + +"La Motte's Dictionary." + +"Is that all?" Singleton dismissed it. + +Not so Grindley. He stooped, and laid the book on the floor beside his +brown case. + +Singleton was obviously disappointed. He glanced back at the open +writing-table. "Nothing else?" he said. + +"Only this," Grindley took a ball-nibbed pen out of the tray. + +Singleton examined it carefully, "Yes." He, too, appeared to think the +pen worthy of all care. He opened Grindley's nearly empty attache case +and laid the pen on top of a piece of brown paper, which covered +something at the bottom. "And the ink?" He seemed to wait for it. + +Grindley was understood to say, "Not yet." Lady McIntyre pointed out the +twin pots on the silver tray engraved _G. v. S. from N. E. Christmas +1913_. "This is the ink," she said. Nobody seemed to hear. Grindley had +gone to the dressing-table, leaving behind him open drawers and Greta's +papers in confusion. + +Lady McIntyre followed. "I must trouble you," she said, with dignity, +"to put the writing-table as you found it." + +"It isn't necessary," murmured the outrageous Grindley. + +"But that is monstrous! You promised--at least, the other one--" She +looked round. The other one, lost to view, was pursuing his nefarious +course in the hanging cupboard. + +"You heard him, Mr. Napier?" She spoke with tremulous bitterness. + +"If I let them investigate quietly, no one need ever know." + +"Yes, _if_ we found we were mistaken,"--Singleton stuck his head out of +the cupboard to say. "But, you see, we find we are not mistaken." He +disappeared amongst folds of apple-green silk and lemon chiffon. + +"Not mistaken!" cried Lady McIntyre. + +"What have you discovered?" Napier called to Singleton. + +It was Grindley, ludicrously inadequate, who answered, "The pen." + +Lady McIntyre ran to the open attache case and took it out. Grindley, at +the dressing table, fingering Greta's toilet set, kept a vacant eye on +Lady McIntyre. + +"What could be more innocent than a perfectly new pen? Look, Mr. Napier. +It's never been used, not even once!" She thrust the pen into Napier's +hand. + +"Look at the point," advised Grindley. + +"Well, _look_ at it. Perfectly clean. If it _matters_," Lady McIntyre +said, "that pen has never _touched_ ink. And how can you write with a +pen if you don't write with ink?" + +"We might--ask the lady," suggested Grindley, who was actually opening +and unscrewing Greta's silver toilet things, holding bottles up to the +light, smelling at corks and stoppers. He slipped out of its silver +shell a small bottle of thick blue glass. He uncorked it and applied it +gingerly to his nose. + +"This is it," he said. + +Lady McIntyre, with the dive of a dragon-fly, was at his side. "You +think because that's labelled 'Poison,' there's something suspicious +about her having it. It just shows! That bottle is part of the manicure +set. Read what it says above the label," she commanded. + +"_Pour les ongles_," the obliging young man pronounced with impeccable +accent. "Yes." And he took the bottle over to the attache case. + +Lady McIntyre made a motion to arrest, to retrieve. As Napier laid a +hand on her arm, trembling, she stood still. + +"We must let them go through with it," he said. + +She looked at him. With an effort Napier could only partly gage. Lady +McIntyre recovered herself. "Go through with it? Of--of course. How +else,"--she flicked her ear-rings with her drawing-room air--"how else +could we convince them?" + +Singleton, with some display of muscle, had dragged out from behind the +pendent draperies a square, canvas box. + +"Ah, that,"--Lady McIntyre went forward, maintaining valiantly the +recovered, drawing-room manner--"_that_ is her hat-box. What they can +want with her hat-box!" She tried to smile at Napier. + +"Heavy for hats," remarked Singleton, in a tone of subdued pleasure. The +box was furnished not only with the usual leather handle on the top, but +with one on each side. To the top handle the label was still tied. It +bore across the upper end the printed legend, + + From Sir William McIntyre, + Kirklamont. + +and underneath the familiar hand had set: + + Von Schwarzenberg. + +Below, in plain large capitals that caught the eye, + + BOOTS + +"Oh, that's why it's heavier than hats." Lady McIntyre held the label so +all could see. + +"It's heavy for boots," remarked Singleton. Grindley had sunk down on +his haunches. + +"This is it," he said. + +"How do you know?" Napier asked. + +"The lock," answered Grindley, picking over his hooks and twisted wires. +He worked for some moments in his customary silence. Singleton strolled +about, opening books. + +"From Nan. From Nan. She might almost as well have had a stamp made." + +Back to the lock-picking figure Napier's eyes came, from praying pardon +of the girl with the plaits leaning out of the window. "Shame!" the girl +cried. + +"A case for cold chisel?" Singleton inquired, looking up from the +libretto of Rosenkavalier. No answer from Grindley, but he put out his +hand and felt under the corrugated paper in the attache case. The hand +came out with a chisel and a hammer. + +"No! no!" cried Lady McIntyre on a note of firmness new to Napier's +ears. "You said 'no forcing open.'" + +"Unless we knew we were justified," amended Singleton. "We know now." + +"You _can't_ know." + +"We have found enough to explain." + +"Enough to explain what?" + +"Why we are here. And why she shouldn't be." + +Lady McIntyre turned, quivering, to Napier. "You know, don't you." + +"I'm afraid,"--Napier interrupted--"what _I_ know wouldn't help Miss +Greta." + +"What do you _mean_!"--her voice was hysterical. "Oh, everybody's mad!" + +As the hammer was raised, Lady McIntyre flung out her hand toward the +top of the chisel. Grindley, his shoulder against the box, pushed it a +trifle to the left, and down fell the hammer in a resounding stroke. The +lady wrung ineffectual fingers, as though they had succeeded in taking +the blow aimed at Greta's lock. "Never, never shall I forgive myself! If +she were to come in while we are at this horrible business--" + +"She won't." But as it now struck Napier, Singleton hadn't once glanced +out of the window. + +Blow upon blow, till the lock fell to the floor. Grindley raised the +lid. He said nothing, uttered no sound, but he smiled for the first and +only time. A sheet of dull silvery metal had met his eye--the top of an +inner box. + +Lady McIntyre sat down in the solitary chair, as though her legs had +suddenly given way. + +By its two steel handles, which had fitted neatly into felt-lined +sockets in the cane-and-canvas top, Grindley and Singleton lifted out +the metal box. They laid it on its front. With those short, vicious +hammer-strokes that seemed to shake the house, Grindley cut the hinges +through. He and Singleton set the box upright and forced back the top. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +After the first moment of stupefaction, Lady McIntyre's, "Oh--a--is that +all?" resolutely proclaimed there was nothing out of the way in a +governess having a box half full of ... books chiefly, weren't they? + +The first thing Grindley took out was a roll of tracing-paper. He undid +it. He smoothed it flat. He turned it over. He held it up to the light. + +"Nothing! Not a thing!" breathed the lady. + +Three pairs of eyes had fallen simultaneously on a letter which had been +underneath the roll of paper--a letter unaddressed, in a sealed +envelope. Grindley opened it. Singleton leaned over to read it, too. All +that Napier could see was that the communication appeared to be in +German script, not written compactly, as the national instinct for +economy seems to inculcate. The lines were wide apart. Grindley's thick +finger, traversing the blank space, seemed to emphasize this fact. + +"Nothing there," said Singleton, dipping his hand in the box again. + +"Nothing that jumps to the eye." Grindley laid letter and envelope on +the floor by the tracing-paper. Out of a shallow cardboard box, full of +numbered films, Singleton had briskly helped himself to one after +another. He held each in turn up to the light--held the first two so +that Grindley could see them. + +"To _keep_ such things! It's the kind of extraordinarily rash things +they do." A look of understanding passed between the two secret-service +men. + +"They?" inquired Lady McIntyre, and as no one answered, "Rash?" She +turned her helpless eyes on Napier. "What a world to live in, when to +take a little picnic snap-shots is 'rash'!" + +"You have a dark room? She develops her own photographs?" + +Lady McIntyre swung her ear-rings. + +While Singleton was running rapidly through the picture series, Grindley +took out a book--a leather-covered book, with a lock. + +"A diary, that is, just like mine," said Lady McIntyre. "Her diary had a +lock, too," she said. But the fact did not save this one from +desecration. Off came the lock at the edge of the chisel, and Grindley +was bending his head over pages of exquisite writing. That it was +German, seemed in no wise to disconcert Grindley. "Plain sailing," was +his comment as he handed the book over to Singleton, who, with a kind of +affectionate regret, put down the two films he had been studying side by +side. "Very instructive, seen _seriatim_," he remarked, as he swept them +toward the case, and took the diary. + +Whether it was a fellow feeling for this private chronicle with the lock +like hers, yet so ineffectual, certainly the sight of Greta's diary +being passed from one strange hand to another made a sudden breach in +Lady McIntyre's hard-won self-control. + +"How you _can_!" She leaned forward to cast the three words into the +dull face again over Greta's box. Grindley's hand was about to close +upon a little gray silk bag which had fallen out of an envelope. Lady +McIntyre was before him. + +"I'll see what that is!" she said. + +Napier winced in anticipation of the undignified struggle to which Lady +McIntyre's action had laid her open. + +But not at all. Grindley's good manners suffered him to make only the +most civil protest. + +"I wouldn't, really. Please, take care!" + +Too late. Lady McIntyre had untied the drawstring and opened the +innocent-looking, feminine thing, only to draw back, choking. Then she +sneezed loudly. She sneezed without intermission, as she held the bag +out at arm's length. + +"Wha-atchew! What-atchew--_is_ it? Chew!" + +Grindley, handling the bag with caution, returned it to the thick waxed +envelope and added that to his collection. Singleton had looked up an +instant from his reading, sympathy in his attitude, a gleam of +entertainment in his eye at recognition of this new object lesson in the +unadvisability of a lady's poking her nose where a secret-service man +warns her not to. + +Napier stood anxiously over Lady McIntyre during the final paroxysm. + +"What was that stuff?" he demanded of the oblivious Grindley. + +"Usually snuff and cayenne," Singleton answered for him. "Harmless, +unless it's flung into the eyes." + +"_Flung in!_" gasped Lady McIntyre, receiving, as it were, full in the +face her first staggering suspicion. + +"If you get only a whiff, the thing to do is to gargle and bathe the +eyes," Singleton advised politely, and fell upon his book again, like +some intrigued reader of romance. + +Lady McIntyre declined to go away to bathe and gargle. She sat wiping +her streaming eyes and letting loose an occasional sneeze. + +There still remained in the boot box, as Napier had seen, two +modest-sized receptacles to be examined. One was of nickel or silver; +the other, a trifle larger, appeared, as Grindley lifted it out, to be +an ordinary japanned cash-box, with the key sticking in the lock. + +"Achew! chew! chew!" said Lady McIntyre, trying to clear her watery +vision, the better to verify the fact that the box was full of English +gold--most of it done up in amateur rouleaux of twenty pounds each, +sealed at each end. + +Surprising, but not criminal, Lady McIntyre's inflamed face seemed to +say. "Maybe," she wedged the words in between a couple of less violent +sneezes; already she was steadying herself after the shock of knowing +that gray bag of devilment in Greta's possession--"maybe she is +custodian--others'--savings--some refugee." + +Grindley had tumbled the rouleaux and the loose gold into his +handkerchief. He knotted it and threw it into his case. + +"I shall tell her!" Lady McIntyre's still streaming eyes arraigned him. +"She shall know you've got it." + +"Of course," said Grindley. + +"And now for the jewel case." Reluctantly Singleton closed the diary. + +But it wasn't a jewel case. No close observer needed Singleton's, "This +is what you were looking for," to recognize Grindley's satisfaction at +discovering a spirit lamp and alcohol flask fitted neatly into the box. + +"It's to heat curling-tongs," said Lady McIntyre in her rasped and +clouded voice. "That's all it is. Nothing in this world but the +arrangement to heat her tongs. Every woman--" + +"Miss von Schwarzenberg doesn't curl her hair with tongs," said the +astonishing Grindley, a man you wouldn't have expected to know if a +woman's hair were green and dressed in pot-hooks. + +"How do you know she doesn't use tongs?" Napier could not forbear +asking. Grindley, working with the lamp, made no reply. + +"Do we understand you to say she does curl her hair with tongs?" +Singleton inquired politely of Lady McIntyre. It was clear to the pair +that part of Singleton's affair was to transact his business with as +little friction as possible, to establish cooperation in the most +unlikely quarters. "You _can't_ say she uses tongs," he said +persuasively. + +"I certainly cannot say she doesn't. Neither can you." Lady McIntyre +stuck to her point as if she knew what hung upon it. + +Grindley had unscrewed the wick cap. If she didn't use tongs, certainly +she had used the lamp; the wick was charred. He lifted out the receiver +and shook it. "Nearly full," he said. + +Singleton was rapidly going through the few things left in the bottom of +the safe. Several leather jewel cases. They revealed a truly astonishing +store--chiefly diamonds. + +"She can have these back at once," Singleton said, setting the cases +down by Lady McIntyre's feet. + +Grindley still hung over the alcohol lamp. He had found narrow metal +bands folded down at the sides of the box. They were supports, as he +proved by setting them upright, and in relation to yet others, with +which they formed an overhead platform above that wired bed, which was +so much more extensive than was necessary to supply the flame for the +heating of tongs. But Grindley seemed to find no flaw in the +arrangement. He made libation of alcohol, and felt for a match. As the +wavering blue flame played along the wire mattress under the tester-like +frame, Grindley put out a hand for the tracing-paper. + +The conviction flashed across Napier's mind, bringing with it a twinge +of acute distaste: Grindley's enjoying himself. Not that the vacant eyes +achieved vision, nor the blunt features keenness. But Grindley was given +up to a pleasureable absorption; an intentness that should +not--considering his task--and yet somehow did insist on seeming less of +the intellect than of the sensory nerves. It was the same look you will +see on the face of the heavy feeder. A slight congestion; a gloss, as of +a faint perspiration. Napier was sure that, apart from Grindley's +professional stake in the issue of the hour, he was living through +highly compensatory moments, as he watched the heat bringing out marks +in the tracing paper. Very slowly the faint lines blackened.... Grindley +showed no impatience; nothing but that gloating, with its suggestion of +sensual abandonment. During those moments of waiting, Napier struggled +against the injustice of his impression. What, after all, were they +looking on at? Wasn't Grindley's satisfaction the same in its lesser +degree as that Champollion felt when he forced the Rosetta Stone to +yield the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics? Champollion used his wits to +serve the ends of learning. Grindley was using his to serve his country. +Why, then, did one feel a horrible kind of guilty excitement rather than +honorable pride, as the heat of Grindley's lamp brought out clean and +clear an outline drawing to scale of a new system of fortification on +the northern coast? + +Napier could hardly repress an explosion of consternation at the sight. +But the only audible sound, except a crackling of the tracing-paper, as +Grindley held it up, was Lady McIntyre's bewildered, "What do you call +that?" + +Grindley had thrown it down for Singleton to deal with, and now the +unaddressed letter was being laid on the grille. Here for some reason +the invisible ink answered less reluctantly to the warmth of the blue +flames' invitation. Between the wide-apart lines appeared like magic the +second letter. Again that stillness, a kind of drunkenness of pleasure +on Grindley's part; again Singleton's quick reaction to success; again, +the instant the lamp had done the work, its abandonment by Grindley. He +looked at his watch. "I suppose we mustn't go without--" He moved toward +the screen. + +Lady McIntyre had made no effort to read a syllable of the new writing. +She sat intensely quiet, while Singleton folded the letter and blew out +the lamp. All her exclamatory speech, all her fluttering motions, were +as stilled as death would one day leave them. It was like the rest one +takes after a prodigious journey. The distance traversed since the +hat-box had been wrenched open was made as clear as though the last +object in the box had been yet another lamp shedding an intenser ray. +Singleton had brought out something rolled in a scarf of Roman silk. +The two objects inside were a small box of cartridges and a revolver. It +was then that Lady McIntyre, rising and steadying herself by the chair, +showed how far she had come in these last moments. "At all events, you +can't say you've found any bombs!" + +"No! oh, no!" If anything could minimize the implications of tragedy +evoked by the sight of a revolver among the personal possessions of a +lady in England, it would be the even pleasantness of Mr. Singleton's +voice. "Nothing of _that_ sort." + +Singleton was busy putting away a medley of things into the attache +case, while Grindley was churning up the contents of the drawers in the +American wardrobe trunk with the energy that seemed so nearly passive +and was so uncannily effectual. The great trunk held no papers and only +the lesser trinkets. But the store of purple and fine linen! Lace and +lawn, and cobweb silk, dribbled from half-open drawers. Brocade and +cloth, chiffon and velvet, swung out to view on adjustable supports. And +all that brave show the unappreciative Grindley dismissed with a single +word, "Nothing," and back he went to La Motte's Dictionary. + +Singleton picked up the jewels that had come out of the hat-box and held +the cases out to Lady McIntyre. + +She seemed, as she stood there steadying herself by the chair back, to +have gone momentarily blind. Singleton suggested she should take care of +the jewels. + +"No; oh, no!" she shrank back, and then the poor soul broke into +weeping. "Under _William's_ roof!" + +Singleton slipped the jewels into the brown suit-case and led the way +to the door. Grindley stood with La Motte open in the hollow of his arm. +Now and then he made a note on a piece of paper, laid on the open page. + +They waited for Lady McIntyre to master her tears. + +"What are you meaning to do?" she demanded. + +Singleton didn't hesitate an instant. The lady would be shown every +consideration. Out of respect to Sir William. + +"I suppose," said Lady McIntyre, with unexpected shrewdness, "it's his +duty to tell me that." She turned from Napier to the man who stood there +with that awful "body of conviction" in the brown suit-case. + +"It will be terrible to have her here--terrible. But all the same you +shall not take her to London to-night." + +"I am afraid those are our instructions," Singleton answered +deferentially. + +"Instructions!" she echoed. "Sir William issues the instructions here. +You cannot take her away till he comes home. Mr. Napier,"--she clutched +at his arm--"will you ring up Sir William?" + +On the other side of the threshold Grindley paused an instant and looked +into the room again. Reluctantly he shut La Motte, and went back for his +hat and stick. + +"Oh, come away and shut the door!" wailed Lady McIntyre, casting a look +of horror about the raided room. A few paces down the hall she loosed +her hold on Napier and walked in front of the three men. Even before she +got to her own room, she put out her hand like a blind person feeling +for the door. She seemed to fall against it. It opened and hid the +little figure from their sight. + +Napier followed guiltily behind the brown case, glancing in at open +doors, listening over the banister. + +Nan! His heart suddenly stood still. There was the cap of Mercury on the +chest in an angle of the lower hall. + +"What is it?" asked the observant Singleton. + +"She has--they have come back!" said Napier. + +"Oh, no." He went on with the same light, swinging gait. + +If Singleton was not, certainly the noiseless brown presence at Napier's +side could not fail to be aware of the afternoon letters on a table in +the hall below. The uppermost in one pile bore the American stamp. That +would be addressed Miss Anne Ellis. + +An undefined dread which had lurked in the dark of Napier's mind, +masking itself as dislike of the man Singleton, betrayed more than a +hint of its presence in an anxious speculation as to whether these men, +licensed to break all laws of human dealing, ought to be left alone a +moment in company with letters and telegrams, and God knew what, down +there on the hall table. + +"We'll go into Sir William's room and telephone him," Napier suggested. + +Singleton looked at his watch. + +"He's due here in about a quarter of an hour. Meanwhile, we'd better +take these in out of the wet." + +Napier could have sworn Singleton was studying the top letter on Miss +Ellis's pile. The only ones he touched were Greta's. All the same, +Napier had to put pressure on himself to avoid picking up Nan's letters +and secreting them in his own pocket. He seriously considered the +possibility of going out and heading off her return. He fixed an +inimical eye on Grindley--Grindley, wandering about taking his bearings, +La Motte still open on his arm. Now he was at the door, looking out--not +for Sir William at all, as it seemed to Napier's mounting uneasiness. He +was standing there looking out for Miss von Schwarzenberg's "ever +loving" friend. Her "confederate," he might be capable of thinking. + +Napier struggled with a vivid prevision of Nan coming back to find that +ambiguous figure--Grindley--at the door. And when she knew what he stood +there for, wouldn't she by every look and motion proclaim her share in +the Schwarzenberg's fate? + +Napier returned hastily to the man at the table. + +"You have," Napier suggested, "some idea, perhaps, when Miss von +Schwarzenberg is likely to be here?" + +In the instant of Singleton's pause to enter a note in that little book +of his, footsteps sounded on the gravel. Steps so quick and light, whose +could they be but--Napier stood braced to meet the misery of this +"coming back." To see her for the first time after that fleeting rapture +among the rocks--to see her like this! He turned his head. Grindley put +out a slow hand. "I'll take it," he said to a telegraph boy who stood +there. + +God!--the relief! + +"You were saying, oh, yes, _When_." Singleton pocketed his note-book. +"If nothing is altered, she'll be back with the others in an hour or so. +Say, a little after six." + +"From Sir William McIntyre's point of view mightn't it be better +to--a--detach Miss von Schwarzenberg from the rest of the party? To get +some of what can't fail to be--a very disagreeable business over +without--a--" + +Singleton eyed him. + +"Not a bad suggestion." He pulled out a time-table. "What do you say, +Grindley, to doing without another night in that beast of an inn?" + +Grindley was at his elbow, holding the orange-brown envelope, +superscription uppermost. "_Schwarzenberg_," all three read. Singleton +dropped his time-table and laid hold of the envelope. + +"No, you'd tear it." Grindley's thick soft thumb was already gently +inserted under the flap. He persuaded it. He put the envelope in his +side pocket and opened the paper slip. As the two secret-service men +closed together to read the message, Napier made a movement for which he +derided himself, an instinctive drawing out of range, as though the +telegram were the private property of these men. + +Singleton dropped his end of the paper with an impatient, "Just exactly +as interesting as usual." He gathered Miss Greta's letters in a pile and +opened the brown case to receive them. The case was now so full that, in +order to include the dictionary abandoned for the moment by Grindley, +Singleton opened the fat volume in the middle, and spatchcocked it face +down on the journal and the jewel boxes. Even so, the case refused to +shut. Singleton turned La Motte out. + +"What's the good of it!" + +"M'm." The sound Grindley made reminded one of a child mouthing a sweet. +But his vacant eyes never left the telegram. + +"You haven't told me,"--with difficulty Napier controlled his +impatience--"I gather"--he went on--"that you know where to lay your +hand on Miss von Schwarzenberg?" + +"Tea telephoned for by Mr. Grant, Golden Lion, Newton Hackett," +Singleton answered, still readjusting the contents of the case. + +"Shall I see if I can get her on the telephone?" + +Singleton hesitated. Over his shoulder he looked round at Napier with +the faintest possible trace of a smile. + +"Just as you like." + +"Yes, it's I, Gavan Napier. Speaking from Lamborough." + +She was surprised, greatly, you'd say pleasantly, surprised. Had Napier +not stopped her, she would have been welcoming, in spite of the fact +conveyed by that subtle inflection which tells the experienced ear that +the speaker at the other end of the wire is not alone. + +"Don't use names," Napier warned. "Could you get away from your party +and return here at once?" + +"What's happened?" the voice came sharply back. + +"You might say Lady McIntyre wants you. She isn't ill. And she would +specially like the party not to be broken up. The motor can go back for +the others. One moment! Could you--use your influence to prevent +_anybody_ coming with you? Any one at all?" + +After a second's pause the voice came pleasantly: + +"The others have begun tea already. _Famished._ But I don't mind waiting +to have mine with ... perhaps with you! Good-by, dear--" + +Napier nearly dropped the receiver. + +"--_dear_ Lady McIntyre." + +Before he rang off, he stepped back as far as the cord on the receiver +allowed him to go. To the very threshold of the telephone room. He had +suddenly remembered Nan's letters. Had they dared--? + +He could see the two quite plainly, Grindley with a glass at his eye, +studying the telegram, with Greta's dictionary between them. The message +was in French, then. A sharp pricking of curiosity brought Napier back +into the hall. + +Grindley folded Miss Greta's telegram, returned it to its envelope, and +stuck down the flap. Then he laid it, address uppermost, in the empty +space between Lady McIntyre's letters and those of Miss Ellis, picked up +the brown case, and passed Singleton, with a murmured, "Back in time." + +"Perishing for a pipe," was his companion's comment to Napier, as the +stout figure turned off among the shrubberies. "Great person, Grindley!" + +Singleton took a letter off Miss Ellis's pile. + +"How much is _she_--the American--in this, should you say?" + +"You're too good at your job," retorted Napier, "to imagine she's within +a thousand miles of being 'in it.'" + +"Oh, you think that?" + +His look drew a sudden stricture round Napier's heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Singleton stood there in the middle of the hall, facing the open door, +and still, as though he had the smallest right to touch anything of +hers, he held Miss Anne Ellis's letter in his hand. + +"Something must have happened to Sir William," he said. + +"Puncture," suggested Napier, all his energies concentrated for the +moment on suppressing every outward sign of concern about the fate of +the letter. He had forced his eyes away from it. Yet, wherever he +looked, he was more aware of that white square in Singleton's hands than +of anything else in the hall. + +But Napier had pulled himself together with a strong hand. He mustn't +lose an instant; he shied away from formulating even in secret the idea +of which Singleton's mind must be disabused. He got only as far as to +ask himself, with a ghastly inner sinking, just what danger was +there--could there conceivably be--of Nan's being inadvertently caught +in the net he, Gavan Napier, had helped to spread? _Nan!_ He leaned hard +against the table. Of course--he told himself--of course, they'd find +nothing, nothing in the world to implicate Nan. But the shock, the +wound! How she'd loathe this England! He sat down heavily. + +Singleton came sauntering back, the long chin in one hand, the +overbrilliant eyes on Napier. To make an enemy of this man, in the +present universal instability of equilibrium, wouldn't it be a stupid as +well as dangerous mistake? + +"Smoke?" suggested Napier. He felt for his cigar case. + +Singleton didn't mind if he did. As he sat down on the other side of the +table, he dropped Miss Ellis's letter on the pile. + +Oh, but the letter looked well on the table! It suddenly occurred to +Napier, lightly slapping his pockets--what had he done with those +cigars?--there was something not only attractive about Singleton, but +downright likeable. + +"It must be a curious life, yours," he said. + +"Well, you know how it is yourself." + +"_I know?_" It was one thing to leave off hating him, quite another to +ally Gavan Napier with the underground work of the world of spies. + +"_Nous pechons aujourd'hui des plus gros poissons, surtout a_,"--he +dropped out as lightly as a smoke-ring the final words, "Gull Island." + +Napier, leaning forward to take back the burning match, very nearly fell +off his chair. + +"What do _you_ know about--" + +"Oh, Gull Island is one of our secret-service pets," Singleton went on, +still in French--though it seemed the height of improbability that, had +he spoken in English, any unseen listener could have distinguished words +falling in the voice you would say was low by nature rather than by +caution. "Jolly little place, Gull Island. I was there last month." + +"_Comment!_" Napier said, accepting the medium chosen by his +interlocutor. "You mean before I--" + +"Oh, yes, two weeks before you reported. You didn't, so far as I +remember,"--he seemed to indicate a flaw or even a suspicious +circumstance--"you didn't connect this woman with it." + +"What woman?" + +"Oh, then there _is_ more than one?" + +"Oh, see here,"--Napier's patience, perhaps even his self-control, was +wearing thin--"what's the use of going on like this? You know there's +only one suspicious person hereabouts. What you couldn't know is that I +wrote from Scotland a full and complete statement." + +"Who to?" + +"To Sir William!" + +"That was before you were warned?" + +"Warned?" + +"To keep the Gull Island business to yourself." + +Before Napier could bring out his slightly annoyed defense, Singleton +went on: "I wouldn't have dreamed of broaching the matter, if I hadn't +just got my instructions to meet you in London for the express purpose +of telling you that the importance of Gull Island isn't a thing of the +past." He waited while Napier digested the news in a wondering silence. + +"In your report to headquarters you didn't, I gather, mention the lady," +Singleton persisted. + +"Why should I? So far as she was concerned I had only my unsupported +suspicions to go on. I thought it only fair to Sir William to leave the +initiative _there_ to him." + +"I see. It was perhaps the more convenient thing to do." + +"It wasn't at all convenient," Napier assured him with asperity. "I got +into such particularly hot water over my case against the lady that I +don't at this moment know whether I am still private secretary to Sir +William McIntyre or not." + +"Why is that?" + +"She persuaded him that I was, to put it mildly, salving my wounded +feelings. Oh, she's--" Napier jumped up, and went to the door. + +"Yes, she is," Singleton's voice sounded an amused agreement. + +"_What_ is she?" Napier demanded, turning round. "Does anybody know?" + +"Well, what do you think we're for?" + +Napier stood there, an embodied interrogation. How closely did it touch +Nan Ellis, the knowledge this man had? + +"We've kept an eye on her for some time. She has been unconsciously--" +Singleton flicked his cigar-ash--"of considerable use to us. Oh, she's +well known. Devils for Pforzheim and Engleberg." + +"Engleberg? Who is Engleberg?" + +"The older one, who called himself Carl Pforzheim. A slim pair, those +two!" + +"He got away?" + +Singleton smiled. "One got away--Carl. Ernst is--extremely safe." + +The thought of Lady McIntyre came to Napier, along with the horror of +the picture Singleton had evoked; intimates of Kirklamont, donors of +Boris and Ivan; Mr. Ernst, in prison waiting for the firing squad; Mr. +Carl showing his "nice teeth" in a rictus of terror before turning to +take McClintock's knife in his throat. + +"There's no call to make a mystery of this little Schwarzenberg affair," +Singleton was saying. "The woman is better known in Brussels. Better +known still in Cincinnati, Ohio." Singleton smiled. "She has a great +reputation in a certain suburb of that semi-German city. The good people +of New Bonn are proud of her. She has come on so." + +"Come on?" + +"Oh, she began to 'come on' from the moment she arrived, twenty years +ago, at the age of twelve." + +"You don't mean she's thirty-two?" + +"Thirty-three, to be exact. She came from a suburb of Berlin with an +older sister, to help in the patriarchal family of the Cincinnati uncle +and aunt." + +"The millionaire uncle?" + +Singleton's nod of pleasant indulgence accompanied the more exact +information. + +"He'd laid by money enough to start a little beer garden. The older +sister soon went out to service. This one insisted on going to school. +But she helped in the beer garden between whiles. Made a friend of one +of the habitues, a fiddler in the local band. She sang for the beer +garden customers, and they threw her dimes. At fourteen she got an +engagement at the little German theater. She sent home the passage money +for a brother. Instead of putting him to a trade, she put him to school. +This girl of fifteen. The next year she sent for another brother. _Meme +jeu._ Oh, she's been very decent to her family. But the voice of great +souls appears always to have been Miss Schwarz's undoing. Her voice was +unformed. She forced it. Broke it. At eighteen an end to hopes of great +operatic career. A year or so later she went on the stage. Played in +German a couple of seasons. Graduated into English. Then there's a +goodish interval which we haven't yet filled. Nearly six years, I make +it. When she next comes to the surface, she had fallen in with Pforzheim +at Washington, and was falling out with him in Paris. The Brussels' +Secret Service had employed him on that Duc de Berry case. _She_ did the +work. Pforzheim, as usual, got the credit, and naturally most of the +cash. She needs an awful lot to keep her going--this woman. They +quarreled over the amount. She washed her hands of the job and of him, +and back she goes to America. Out of the glare and excitement of Paris +and a partnership in Pforzheim's plottings, to--what do you suppose? To +teach music, of all things! In San Francisco, of all places! In a +private family!" Singleton laughed. "These Ellises!" He nodded at Miss +Anne's letters. "Again and again we've traced Greta Schwarz doing this +and that for the International Bureau, being successful and well paid, +and suddenly chucking the whole thing and going back to respectability +and dullness. An inversion of the desire of the moth for the flame. The +desire of the butterfly to labor, to store honey and esteem!" + +Napier brought him back to the point. "Now that you've landed Pforzheim, +any more use for her?" + +"None on earth." + +"But if in this case she's been only Pforzheim's tool, is the evidence +enough--?" + +Singleton nodded. + +"Her neck's in the noose. You don't believe her neck's in the noose?" + +The smile was ugly. It gave a certain sportsman's pleasure to Napier's +reply. + +"She's a very clever person--is Miss von Schwarzenberg." + +"Well, my experience with all these people," returned Singleton, easily, +"is that the cleverest do the rashest things. Who takes care of +Pforzheim's tracery of fortifications? Pforzheim? Not he. This woman, +with twice his wits. And what do you think of her setting down in that +idiotic diary full reports of conversations among officials? Some at +dinner, some overheard. And do you think Number Eighteen--that is +Pforzheim--do you think he was going to run the risk of having code +messages traced to him? Not a bit of it. The compromising messages come +to her." + +"How do you know?" + +Singleton dropped his long fingers on the orange envelope and played a +brief tattoo. + +"We stopped another of the same sort, signed in her name, this morning +at the local post-office." + +"And you could read it?" + +"Anybody could read it. Order on an Amsterdam broker to buy Tarapaca +nitrates." + +"And what did that tell you?" + +"Absolutely nothing. We've tapped messages of the same sort before." + +"Then you are no forrader." + +"We weren't when we got here this afternoon." Although the conversation +had been carried on in low-voiced French, Singleton leaned over the +table and dropped out the next sentence in a tone that barely escaped +the suspicion-stirring whisper, "Grindley found a French dictionary in +her writing-table." + +"What good did that do you?" + +"All the good in the world." Singleton's face shone with the good it did +him. "You see," he went on, in that careless-sounding undertone, "the +hitch was we couldn't hit on the code. That's why we've been giving her +rope." + +"And now?" + +"Now--?" In a flash of pantomime Singleton with one hand suggested the +knotting round the throat. His quick fingers carried the invisible cord +above his head. He dangled the phantom felon in the air. "And the beauty +of it is, she's done it herself." + +"I wonder," said Napier. + +"You wouldn't if you knew Grindley!" Singleton smiled comfortably as he +lay back in the high carved chair. "Frightfully intelligent boy, +Grindley. You see,"--suddenly he bent over the table again--"it's like +this. They send about a devilish lot of their information in the form of +brokers' orders. I dare say, if you've noticed, she'll pretend to read +the 'Financial Times.'" + +He waited only a second for the verification Napier withheld. But the +familiar picture sprang up at call: Miss Greta half coquettish, half +girlishly--appealing, "I must see what's happened to my poor little +earnings." Sir William amused, pleasantly malicious, "As if you'd know, +even if they told you! You'd far better ask me." + +"Thank you immensely, but women oughtn't to be so dreadfully dependent. +I'd like to _make_ myself understand. Perhaps in time--" + +And Sir William's laughter: "When rivers run uphill and kittens cry +to-whitt, to-whoo!" + +Singleton had taken out a note-book and scribbled two or three lines. + +"She'll telegraph something like that." He held the book open on the +table under Napier's eyes. "She wouldn't care a button if the +post-office people gave that up or whose hands it fell into." + +Certainly in Napier's hands it would have made Miss Greta no trouble. + +"You might call it stupid," was his comment. + +"Exactly. Nobody could be expected to see danger to the state in an +order to buy Nepaul rice or Sumatra cigars. It's all right and runs on +greased rails, till Grindley comes along. He turns over that La Motte of +hers, till he notices some minute pencil-marks on one of the green +advertisement pages at the back. The marks were so small that no eyes +but Grindley's would have noticed them at all. And even Grindley +couldn't read them without a magnifying glass." Singleton leaned over +suddenly till he could command the avenue, stretching, sun-flecked, +empty to the gates. + +"Do you always hear the motor before it gets to the plantation?" + +"Always." + +"Well, the kind of thing that came out under the glass was: 'Market +dull--Ascertain R--activity.' R," interpreted Singleton, "meaning +Hosyth, of course. 'Prices falling--Leaving Southampton. Advise +purchase--Report to Seventy-Six.' + +"Seventy-six is the number of the German agent at Amsterdam. We've +learned a good deal since we discovered that is where seventy-six hangs +out. This message, for instance,"--he nodded at the one between them on +the table--"says, 'Advise immediate purchase Erie at 22-1/4--3/4 and +steel 129-5/8, market rising.' It's clear, according to the La Motte +code, that something's got to be reported instantly to the German secret +service agent at Amsterdam. The question is what? Even if we intercepted +the message, we shouldn't be any the wiser. Or, rather, we shouldn't +have been, if Grindley hadn't gone juggling with the numbers of the +stock quotations till it occurred to him, after trying the thing twenty +other ways." He stopped. + +"Yes," Napier threw in. "I've been wondering why you tell me all this." + +His smile was slightly abstracted. + +"It's all right, I thought I heard a motor," said Singleton. He met +Napier's eyes. "It's my business to know men, and before it was my +business I knew you." That was the sole reference made to the Oxford +episode. "Grindley's got an idea," Singleton went on and his face +reflected the brilliance of it, "that the consonants in the occasional +short-code words interpolated into some of the messages--words like +Tubu, and so on--stand for the class of ship the submarines are to look +out for. Tubu equals Torpedo boat. Kreuzer, Kleinkreuzer, Zerstorer, and +so on, are indicated, we think now, in the same way." + +Napier made no pretense at sharing Singleton's delight in these +speculations. + +"All this information," he exclaimed, "going back and forth with +absolute impunity!" + +"Until to-day," Singleton breathed out from full lungs. "Great day this +for the service!" + +But Napier sat appalled. No ship to leave our harbors, but its character +and course might be known to the enemy lying in wait! He began to +believe things he'd scoffed at. It was true, then, the Germans had coded +in their secret-service ciphers every naval base, every ammunition +center, every camp, every war-vessel of the British fleet. He said as +much, with raging in his heart. + +"And while ship after ship, crew after crew, goes down, what is _our_ +secret service doing!" + +One member of it was blowing smoke-rings. Not till the supply of smoke +gave out, did Singleton fall back on words: + +"You hear very little about the English secret service, and you hear a +lot about the German. That, to begin with, is an advantage, greater than +you can appreciate. I don't propose to subtract from it. But there's no +law against my talking about the German system. Their greatest technical +flaw is that they lose themselves in a wilderness of detail. Their men +will know all about the trajectory and penetration of the fourteen-inch +gun, and they'll understand so little the men who make the guns that our +quarrels among ourselves, our industrial unrest, is taken to mean that +we're ready to consent to 'a German peace.' They'll report reams--we've +seen 'em, got 'em docketed in our drawers--reams about the ordnance +factories of the Argyle works. But as for the new projectile we're +turning out a few hundred yards away, they'll have no more idea of +_that_--till it goes whistling and roaring through their compact +formations--than they have that the money they're still secretly +supplying to Pforzheim comes straight to our Intelligence Department. +All the same, where the Germans fail isn't in brains. Trouble with the +ruck of 'em is, they go from the extreme of sentimentality at one end, +to the extreme of brutality at the other. Pforzheim! A sort of modern +Werther, with a capacity for cruelty that would turn a South Sea +cannibal sick. This woman, too. Risk her own life and lose Pforzheim +his, colossal business in hand, and goes on like the heroine of a +shilling shocker. Can't resist collecting all the silly 'properties.' +Simply dotes on the paraphernalia, pistol, and what not. One of the +unwritten rules of the service: 'Make no memoranda. Carry no documents; +only by rare exception carry arms.' She goes putting down compromising +details, in a letter, for the amateurish pleasure of airing her 'inside +knowledge' of the British Cabinet, and making use of invisible ink. No +self-respecting British spy would be caught dead with most of the truck +she'd collected in that box." + +Napier had the very soundest conviction that, however poorly Singleton +thought, or pretended to think, of Miss Greta's qualifications, he had +set a guard of some sort at every possible avenue of escape. The woman +was already as much a prisoner as any badger in the bottom of a bag. "If +she's a specimen of the amateur," Napier said, "Heaven save us from the +professional!" + +Singleton laughed. "Heaven would need to look lively. I'd hate to be +the custodian of damaging secrets with a fellow like Grindley about. +You'll see." He struck his fist on the table. "A hundred pound sterling +to a German pfennig, Grindley'll come back with that message from the +Dutch agent neatly decoded. Oh, Grindley's immense!" Singleton rolled +one long leg over the other, luxuriating in Grindley's immensity. "We +aren't supposed to know each other--Grindley and I. But who wouldn't +know Grindley! As a matter of fact, I introduced him to the chief, and +the chief luckily isn't a stickler for the continental rules in this +business. We English humanize it. What's the result? We totally mystify +the rule-ridden Hun, and we've got the most efficient secret service in +the world." + +"Have we?" Napier started involuntarily at the sound of the motor +turning off the high road and running now through the plantation with a +muffled hum. "Here comes the--amateur!" + +No acumen was required to read the fact that, in Napier's opinion, +Singleton underestimated the noxious power of the amateur agent. + +"I don't deny,"--the secret-service man stood up, but he dropped his +voice to a lower register, as though the invisible comer were already at +the door--"I'm not for a moment denying that this woman can do a certain +amount of harm. She's got to be suppressed. But think of what she +_might_ do! She's had every opportunity, and she'll always fall short." + +"Not ruthless enough?" + +"Oh, she can be as ruthless as you please,"--Singleton for some reason +had crossed the hall. He stood leaning against the wall near the +billiard-room. "She could put a bullet in you nicely, after she'd +blinded you with cayenne. But,"--Singleton shook his head--"she hasn't +the right standards." + +"Oh, standards?" echoed Napier. It seemed a queer word. + +"At heart," said Singleton, "she has longings, as I read per +record--ineradicable longings--for, what do you think? Respectability!" +He smiled and then shook his fine head. "To be any good as a spy you +must be either aristocrat--a perfectly satisfying law unto yourself, or +you must be _canaille_. This woman--she's _bourgeoise_ to the core, and +a Romantic to boot. There doesn't exist a more fatal combination. I tell +you,"--he stood erect--"Greta Schwarz is done for. _Kaput!_" + +"She doesn't look it." Napier, leaning over, had caught sight of the +car. + +Gliding round the drive, the handsome occupant visibly luxuriating in +the comfort and elegance of Lady McIntyre's limousine, Greta von +Schwarzenberg lay back against the dove-colored cushions, with only her +heightened color to show her the least stirred by the unexpected +summons. Or was the color there, like a couple of flags, hung out in +honor of Napier's return? + +"_Ecoutez!_" Singleton's head appeared an instant out of the +drawing-room door. "There's just one thing missing in that box of tricks +upstairs--pinch of white powder. You must look out for that if we don't +want a corpse on our hands." + +"_I_ must look out? See here--" + +Singleton's head vanished. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Greta smiled at him. + +"What has happened?" another would have demanded, on sight of Napier's +face; not Miss Greta. She paused on the step of the motor, calmly giving +the chauffeur directions about going back for the others. "Nice to see +you home again." She held out her hand to Napier. + +He led the way into the hall. + +"You look rather disturbed," she commented drily. + +Disturbed, indeed! Who wouldn't at finding such a business shifted on +his shoulders? "We expected Sir William before this,"--Napier's +hesitation was only outward. Inwardly he was cursing with extreme +fluency. "The train service is horribly disorganized." + +"Everything is disorganized," responded Miss Greta, drawing off her +glove. She caught sight of her telegram. The heavy, white fingers paused +in the act of opening it. A change, quick, subtle, came over her face. +"Some one has been tampering with this!" She spoke in a sudden, harsh +voice, Napier had never heard before. He was conscious that guilt was +printed large on his countenance. + +"Yes, it's been tampered with." He in his turn spoke loud enough for the +words to reach Singleton. + +"Hush!" said Miss Greta, to his astonishment. "Come--" she led the way +across the hall, toward the drawing-room. + +"I must wait here, for Sir William," said Napier, lamely. + +Miss Greta stood looking at him an instant, then she took the telegram +out of the envelope and glanced at it. After a moment's reflection she +folded it up, replaced it in the envelope, folded the envelope small, +and thrust it in her belt. + +"You'd better tell me," she said in an undertone, "what has been going +on." As Napier hesitated, her growing uneasiness got the better of her. +"I'll ask Lady McIntyre." She went quickly toward the staircase. + +"No, no, come back." He waited till she turned. "There's been some +one--some one was sent down from London to--look into things." + +Wide and innocent, the china-blue eyes were on him. "To look into what +things?" + +"Yours." + +"Mine? What on earth for?" She smiled, divided, it would seem, between +diversion and stark bewilderment. + +For a second, Napier forgot the man in the next room. "I'm afraid it's +all up, Miss Greta." He had never called her "Miss Greta" before, never +spoken so gently. + +She came over to the table. "And why," she asked in a level voice, "do +you think _that_, Mr. Gavan?" She had never used his Christian name +before. + +"They've found--what they were looking for." + +"And what were they? Not"--she drew herself up suddenly--"not that +_that_ matters," she said with a towering contempt. "The thing that +_does_ matter isn't that in these terrible times _all_ foreigners are +suspect. The thing that matters is that Lady McIntyre and you--_you_ +should allow strange people to--" Her quivering lips could form no more +for the moment. She pressed her handkerchief to her mouth. "Were you +present when they--" + +He nodded. + +"How you _could_!" From a great height she dropped contempt on him. And +she had scorn to spare for the men of the secret service. "They must be +easily satisfied! What do they think they have found in my poor solitary +trunk?" + +It was perhaps better to go through with the odious business and get it +over. "They found your journal." + +"What of that?" + +"Transcripts of conversations at official dinners--" + +"What of that? _Always_ I set down what interesting people say. Every +diarist has done that since diaries began. Nan does it. Your friend, +Julian Grant, does it. I've done it since I was twelve." + +An effect of poise about her, a delicate effrontery in her tone, steeled +Napier to ask: "And have you also, since you were twelve, made a +practice of photographing fortifications?" + +"_Fortifications!_ Oh, this is the very lunacy of suspicion!" + +"There was also a tracing of the most important of our new coast +defenses." + +"Tracing? What is tracing?" As Napier did not answer, she went on, "I +have never seen such a thing." + +"No, you wouldn't see it, not till you had heated the paper." + +"You mean,"--she gasped--"something in what they call invisible ink? Who +has put that among my papers?" The pink in her face had not so much +faded as deepened to a sickly bluish magenta, like the discoloration of +certain roses before the petals fall. Napier looked away. She stood +there, pouring her cautious, low-voiced scorn on some secret enemy. It +wasn't the first time in history this kind of villainy had been +practised on an innocent person, a person whom _some_body--who was +it?--(she clutched his arm)--whom somebody wanted to get into trouble, +to get out of the way. The congested face looked swollen and patchy. +Minute bubbles of saliva frothed at one corner of the mouth. Suddenly +she faced about and made a rush for the stairs. But Napier, at her +flying heels, caught her half-way up. He seized her by the shoulder, and +he did it roughly, anticipating a struggle. + +Instantly she was still. She dropped her cheek against his ungentle +fingers. "Oh, Gavan, save me!" + +[Illustration: "O Gavan, save me!"] + +"It's too late." He drew his hand away. She turned to the friendlier +banister and clung there. "They have taken everything," he said very +low. + +"Everything?" + +"All the things you thought you had hidden." + +"Hush!" She backed a step. + +Napier, with the advantage of his inches, head and shoulders above her, +had caught sight of an unfamiliar figure sitting in the upper hall, +reading a newspaper. Grindley! Greta had not seen him, but she heard Sir +William's voice coming out of Lady McIntyre's bedroom, and Lady +McIntyre's raised in a sob: "William! William!--Need any one know? +Outside us three and the police?" + +"I don't see the slightest necessity." Sir William came out and shut the +door. + +He stood an instant ruffling up his hair and looking intensely +miserable. Greta von Schwarzenberg had backed down the stair. + +Sir William descended slowly, Grindley behind him. It was Sir William +who started when he realized who was waiting there at the bottom. Napier +saw that a strong impulse to turn tail and leave this unpleasant +business had to be overcome. Sir William bustled on down. He passed Miss +Greta without a sign. + +"Where's the other?" he demanded of Napier, and just then Mr. Singleton +strolled down the hall. Sir William nodded bruskly, and turned to the +motionless figure of the woman. "I--a--" (he felt for his seals) "I am +sorry to have to tell you that--a--that the police have convinced me you +had better leave here." + +"And why," she said, "should I leave here?" + +"Because it appears that you abuse our hospitality." + +She threw back her head. "What appears yet more clearly is that people +_I_ have trusted have betrayed me." Over the prominent blue eyes the +lids drooped a little. "In my absence some one has laid a trap." She +turned to Napier, with a breath-taking sharpness. "Is it you?" + +He met her gaze. "I warned them about Gull Island, and I--" + +"Gull Island! What has Gull Island to do with me?" + +"No, no," said Sir William. "I don't myself connect you with the Gull +Island business." + +"Nor,"--she made a slight inclination that seemed to say she was not to +be outdone in chivalry--"nor do I need to be told that _you_, Sir +William, have no hand in this. _You_ weren't made for such work." + +Sir William's rolling eye caught, as it were, upon some unexpected +support. It rested for one mollified moment. + +"I haven't lived under your roof all these months," she went on, "under +the protection of your great name, without understanding _you_, even +though people you think your friends cruelly misunderstand me." The +voice caught; she carried her handkerchief to her shaking lips. +Singleton read signs in Sir William's countenance that made him anxious +to end the passage between the owner of the great protecting name and +the lady who invoked it. Singleton had joined Grindley, who stood +leaning against the wall behind Sir William. In an impatient undertone, +"Why didn't you tell him?" demanded Singleton. + +"Did," Grindley answered. "Understood diary and tracing. Didn't give +himself time to take in the--" His hand came out of his side pocket with +a paper. Singleton plucked it away from him and carried it over to Sir +William. As it passed, Napier caught a glimpse of Miss Greta's +handwriting on a telegraph form bearing the post-office stamp. + +"This was sent out from here at noon to-day." Singleton held the message +under Sir William's eyes. + +"Well, what of it?" retorted Sir William. "A perfectly proper +instruction to a broker." + +"Till it's been decoded. If you like, Mr. Napier can explain how +afterwards. What it means is: + + "_Troopship leaves Southampton at seven to-night. Four + searchlights playing constantly over harbor. No convoy._" + +There was a moment of deathlike silence. The woman stood as motionless +as the carved banister at her back. + +"Gavan," Sir William cried out, "is it true?" + +"It's true," he said. + +"You say this information was sent--" The terror in the old man's face +evoked the shattered and shattering image of a torpedoed ship, a sea +full of drowning soldiers. + +"We stopped it at the post-office." + +Relieved of the crowning horror, Sir William shook off the paralysis +that had held his restlessness in a vice. He hurried half a dozen steps +up the hall and half a dozen down, jingling and muttering, "This--going +on in my house!" He drew up into a jerk as the woman darted forward and +planted herself in his way. + +"Why not in your house?" she demanded wildly. "Haven't you a hand and +two sons in what's going on elsewhere? What are you doing to my brothers +and friends? Is it worse to be drowned than to have your head battered +to pulp? Than to have six inches of steel run through your stomach? +Wouldn't it make _you_ want to kill your enemies to see what I saw at +the Newton Hackett drill-ground--a bag stuffed with straw, hung up--and +hear the Staff Sergeant call it Fritz, and shout out, 'Now, men, +straight for his kidneys!'" + +"Gavan!" Sir William's voice called hoarsely, "make an end of this!" He +went down the passage at the double, and shut himself in his private +room. + +Less the woman's rigid lips than her eyes asked Singleton, "What--do +they--mean--to do?" + +"You know what they do in a case of this kind in Germany?" + +As if the men in front of her had been the firing-squad, each look a +bullet, she pitched forward. She would have dropped on her face, had +Napier not caught her. He shook her slightly by the arm. + +"Here's Nan," he said under his breath, "I mean Miss--your friend and +Madge--" The noise outside pierced through the common preoccupation. The +motor was rushing up the avenue. Napier led the woman to a chair. + +As she sat down, her head fell back against the wall. The face had a +dead look. + +"We don't want her fainting," Napier said sharply, as Singleton leaned +over her. + +"There is an excellent train," remarked the secret-service man, "that +leaves Fenchurch Street just about this time to-morrow." + +She parted her shaking lips. "What has that--to do--with me?" + +"You will be able to catch it." + +"Shall I--shall I _really_?" She made a fruitless upward clutching at +his arm. Her hand fell back into her lap, as though lamed. "Oh, no! You +only want--_he_ wants"--she slid a look at Napier--"to get me out of +here without a scene. People's--feelings--must be spared. All--except +mine." + +"He told me,"--Grindley's slow voice sounded, his eyes seemed to find +vacancy where another's would have found Sir William's door--"he told me +he didn't want to make it any worse for you than necessary!" + +"Ah!" Something like life returned to the dead eyes. "Any worse, he +means, for himself." + +Napier turned away in disgust. + +"Your seat in the Pullman," said Singleton politely, "is Number +Sixteen." + +"You don't m-mean they will let me go--_home_!" + +"Yes; that's the kind of fools we are." + +As the voice Napier's ears were straining for called out, "Greta!" Nan +came up the steps, leaning forward, as she ran, to see into the hall. +"Is that you, Gre--" She hung a second, framed there in the doorway, +with Madge behind her. "What _is_ it, dearest?" She flew to the figure +on the chair. She kneeled beside it. "Greta darling, you've had bad +news. Oh, what _is_ it, my dear?" She chafed the slack hand. She laid it +against her cheek. "Tell me, somebody!" she said, looking at Napier. +"Who are these strangers?" + +By a heroic effort, Miss von Schwarzenberg produced a masterpiece. +"They--they are friends of mine," she said. + +Singleton, after a faint smiling inclination in Miss Ellis's direction, +as though accepting the audacious description as an introduction, made +it good by saying to Miss von Schwarzenberg: "You understand then, +you're not to give yourself any trouble about tickets or accommodation. +We will see to all that, won't we, Grindley?" + +Grindley made a consenting rumble in his throat, and withdrew with +Singleton to the front steps. They stood there conferring. + +Napier waited on thorns to get a word with Nan. Was it impossible, was +it too late, to put her on her guard? She seemed to have no eyes for any +one but Greta. If Singleton had doubted the closeness of her relation to +that notorious character, what must he think now? + +"Try to tell me, dearest, what has happened." Nan hung over the slack +form. + +"Are you going somewhere, Miss Greta?" Madge pressed to the other side +of the chair. "_Where_ are you going?" + +"And _why_?" Nan urged with a sharpness of concern. "You've had bad +news, my dearest, dearest." + +"Yes." Greta remembered the telegram. She took the message out and half +opened it. The paper was now folded in halves, instead of in quarters. +Nan watched eagerly the fingers, which seemed to forget to open the +telegram to her friend's eye. + +"Poor father!" Miss Greta brought out the words in a tone so exquisitely +gentle that Napier studied her face an instant. + +He was sure that, as she sat there with that look of sorrow, absently +tearing the telegram across, she was thinking lucidly and rapidly what +her next move should be. + +"Is it that your father is ill, dear?" Nan pressed closer to her side. + +Greta nodded. Speechless with emotion, she tore the facing halves of the +telegram to ribbons, the ribbons to fragments, all with the air, as it +struck Napier, of the _fille noble_ of the theater. + +"Dear, I'm terribly sorry!" Nan took her hand. "But you mustn't think it +is as serious as all that. Unless--what did it say?" + +Greta looked down at her hands as though expecting to be able to hand +the telegram over to speak for itself, only to find it, to her +surprise, reduced to the fineness of stage snow. + +"He has been telegraphing me for days to come home. I didn't realize it +meant--_this_!" + +"Perhaps it's not so bad as you think. Let us send them a message, reply +paid. And you'll see. The news will be better." + +Miss Greta shook her head. "I have put it off too long already," she +said faintly. "There is the slenderest chance of my finding him alive." +Suddenly she pressed her handkerchief to her lips. + +"Darling Greta, _do, do_ let me telegraph!" + +Miss von Schwarzenberg drew herself up. She rose. She stood like the +heroine in Act III. "I am a soldier's daughter. I obey." She went toward +the stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Mr. Singleton turned round, watch in hand. + +"You could catch the seven-two," he said politely. + +Miss Greta, at the bottom of the staircase, faithfully flanked on one +side by Nan, by Madge on the other, paused to consider her friend's kind +suggestion. + +"You could be ready inside an hour if we both helped,"--Nan enlisted +Madge as confidently as though there had never been a cloud between +them. + +"You'll have _your_ things to pack, too," Miss Greta reminded Nan. + +"Oh, I'll do that in ten minutes, after I've--after we've helped you." +Nan's hand on Miss Greta's arm urged her to the enterprise. + +"A--just a moment," Napier interrupted, the disorder of the raided room +printed strong upon his inner vision. He saw it in pieces, like a +Futurist picture--a corner of gaping drawer showing a confusion of +papers, a glimpse of wardrobe-trunk dribbling flimsiness of lawn and +froth of lace; in the foreground fierce, violent, malevolent, the broken +metal shell of the false hat-box; Nan's eyes, no less clear, clearer +than all else, looking down upon the chaos and indignity of a ruined +life. She and the other "child," Madge, ought to be spared that +spectacle. Over the newel of the banister Napier spoke directly to Nan +for the first time since they had stumbled among rocks in the moonlight +three weeks ago, fleeing before the tide that raced up the shore, and +before the tide higher, more menacing, which had risen in their hearts. +"If you were to get a telegraph form--if we could write out a telegram +to send to Miss von Schwarzenberg's father--or--to--to--" he floundered. + +"Yes," said Miss Greta. "To my father's agent, Schwartz." + +"Anybody you like. We'll do our best"--he glanced at Singleton--"to get +a message through." + +Instead of going to the drawing-room for a telegraph-form, Nan took a +scrap of paper out of her side pocket. + +"Schwartz, _chez_ Kalisch," Napier heard the dictation begin, before +Madge created a diversion on her own account. + +"Let me by, will you? I must go and tell Mother." + +"Tell your mother what?" To Napier's relief, Miss Greta stopped her. + +"That I'm going to London to see you off." + +"No, dear." Greta caught at a tress of the girl's thick hair. + +In the swift parley that followed, Madge, who had been strangely quiet +until now, flatly refused to be left behind. "I'd go," she declared with +sudden passion, "if I had to _walk_ to London!" + +Miss Greta leaned heavily against the banister. What would you?--her +glance toward Singleton seemed to say. This is the devotion I am +accustomed to inspire. Then hurriedly to Madge: + +"Listen, darling. You must be very good and helpful in these +last--whether they're minutes or whether they're hours--" + +"_D-don't!_" A gulping sound, more angry than tender, was throttled in +Wildfire's throat. + +"You'd better, first of all," advised Miss Greta, "go and telephone +Brewster to get the rooms ready." + +Napier gaped at the effrontery of the suggestion. + +"She means at Lowndes Square?" Nan put the hurried question with eyes of +sympathy on Madge, who was plainly not at the moment in any condition to +speak. "Couldn't I do it for you?" + +The girl gave her old enemy a grateful glance and, instead of going +first to her mother, pushed past the group at the foot of the stairs and +bolted down the passage to Sir William's room. + +"Lowndes Square?" Singleton repeated idly as he leaned against the door. +"Is that Sir William's London house?" + +Miss Greta did not trouble to reply to the obvious. "Schwartz _chez_ +Kalisch--you've got that?" + +Nan nodded. + +"It will be more convenient," Mr. Singleton interrupted again, "for you +to put up at a hotel." + +Miss Greta appeared to consider this suggestion also to be unworthy of +notice. She stood wrinkling her brows over the form of the message. + +"Let me," said Napier. He held out his hand for Nan's fragment of paper. +"Then you can get on with the telephoning." + +Couldn't Nan trust herself to look into his face? Without raising her +eyes, Nan relinquished paper and pencil, and ran down to the +telephone-room. + +"Returning home via Folkestone to-morrow." Miss Greta, still leaning +against the newel, dictated as imperturbably as though she had a week in +front of her for packing and preparation. + +He hardly looked at the words he scribbled. The instant Nan disappeared +and Singleton had sauntered down the hall in her wake, he said in an +undertone, "You wouldn't like her to see your room. You'd better go up +and lock the door. Tell her to do her own packing first." + +Miss Greta moved quietly up the stairs with Napier at her side. "They've +broken everything open?" she inquired, with contemptuous mouth. + +"You know what they came for." + +She seemed to consider that in its various bearings as she paused an +instant. "It isn't part of what they came for, I suppose, to rob me of +my savings?" + +"They will tell you about that. But if you need anything--" + +"I shall need everything! I have nothing fit to travel in." She spoke as +though, amid the wreck of life and reputation, her wardrobe was the most +important matter she had to think about. + +"I should be glad," Napier answered, "if you would allow--you will find +others equally ready, I dare say; but anything I could--" She would +indignantly refuse, of course. + +To his astonishment she stopped again, this time near the top landing, +to say in a rapid whisper: "I must pay some bills. I am afraid I owe +forty or fifty pounds." + +Napier assured her that she would have a part at least of her money +returned, "in some form." + +"I greatly doubt it. I've heard how they rob us." + +"I beg your pardon, they do nothing of the kind. Not in _this_ country!" + +Miss Greta tightened her lip as she went on toward her room. She looked +through plump Grindley as if he'd been thin air. Nan was flying up, two +steps at a time, with a sheaf of telegraph forms. + +Not far behind, Wildfire came flaming. "Father wants to see you, Mr. +Gavan," she said. + +Sir William was at the house telephone. "Yes, yes, my dear. No fuss, no +foolishness, no publicity. The very fact of our allowing Madge to see +her off--I thought it a horrible idea at first, but don't you see the +value of it? Oh, here's Gavan. I'll come to you in a minute." + +He hung up the receiver. "Look here, Gavan, the really important thing +is that the silly newspapers shouldn't get hold of this. We are sending +Madge up with an old servant to see the woman off. It will quiet any +misgivings in the child's mind, a thing my wife is painfully exercised +about. There's no doubt it would be a dreadful shock to Meggy; and +besides, the great thing is, it will choke off the suspicions of any +nosing, ferreting little penny-a-liner. At least, it would if--my dear +boy, there isn't any one else I would ask such a thing of, but do you +think you could--would you--" + + * * * * * + +The strangeness of that leave-taking! + +Miss Greta was the first to come down, calm, carefully dressed in +_demi-deuil_, as one too fearful of the death of her father to have +heart for her usual pinks and apple-greens, yet showing the front +befitting the daughter of a soldier. She seemed not to notice Grindley +coming slowly down behind her, nor Singleton and Napier talking +together on the steps. She occupied herself with her gloves as she +waited till the men-servants passed her on their way back after hoisting +a wardrobe-trunk and a hat-box on top of the service-motor. + +"That American box, I am afraid it was very heavy." Miss Greta smiled as +she dispensed her _douceurs_ with the demeanor Napier could have sworn +Miss Greta herself took to be suitable to the daughter of a German +officer. It was, at all events, the demeanor popularly supposed to be +the hallmark of the duchess. + +"I hope," she said, advancing to the door and speaking to Singleton, "I +hope you won't mind waiting a moment for Miss McIntyre. Sir William +insists on sending his daughter along to look after me." + +"Sir William should have more faith in us," returned Singleton, with his +agreeable smile. "We have already telegraphed to Cannon Street." + +"_Cannon Street!_" She supported herself an instant against the jamb of +the door. And then she looked back to see that the butler was out of +earshot. "Sir William can't know we are going to--Cannon Street, or he +wouldn't be allowing Madge--" How well she knew one aspect of London! + +"I don't mean the police station," replied Singleton. + +"What _do_ you mean?" she asked, indignant at the trick. + +"The hotel." + +She turned another look across her shoulder. The corridor was empty. +"You aren't meaning I am not to leave the hotel?" + +"You won't need to leave the hotel, not till about five o'clock +to-morrow afternoon." + +"Why didn't you say that in time to prevent my friends here from taking +all the trouble to order my room to be ready for me at their house in +town?" + +Mr. Singleton did not stop to point out that the order had been Miss +Greta's own and that he had politely opposed it. "I am sure you must +appreciate that your preference for the convenience of a hotel will come +better from you." + +"There are things I _must_ go out for." + +"Oh?" he looked at her. + +"Shopping. I have _nothing_ I can travel in." + +Singleton caught Napier's eye, and both glanced at Behemoth disappearing +down the drive on top of the service-motor. Really, these Germans! This +coolly dictatorial woman knew as well as Singleton did that in the bag +at his feet was evidence sufficient to imprison her for life. She also +knew her luck in having been in the service of a man whom it was +undesirable to involve in a scandal. Nan and Madge came running down, +while Singleton, with his unfaltering politeness, was still trying to +think of some way in which to meet Miss Greta's objection. "You have so +many devoted friends," he suggested, "perhaps some one could do these +commissions for you." + +"No." + +"Then I am afraid you will have to postpone your shopping till you reach +home." + +"_I_ could do your shopping," Madge volunteered. + +"You see!" Singleton went down the steps and turned to hand the ladies +in. + +Napier was sure that Miss Greta was as aware as he was of the forlorn, +frightened little face peering out from the drawn blind in Lady +McIntyre's room. But the woman, settling herself calmly in the car, gave +no sign; at least not till Madge, on a note of sympathy that struck +Napier as curious coming from that source, said with an upward glance, +"Mother!" And when Greta still affected to be oblivious, the girl said +peremptorily, "Look!" + +"Where? Oh!" Greta raised her face. She didn't bow; merely smiled. It +was one of the saddest smiles possible to see. "Your poor mother had one +of her prostrating headaches to-day. I am sorry." And then the car +rolled away, bearing a haunting memory of that face at the window. + +If Nan's excitement at the thought of nearing London helped the party +over some difficult moments, it created others. + +"You see, I went straight from the docks in Liverpool to Scotland, and +from Scotland to Lamborough. This is the first time in all my life--oh, +what's that?" She stared out of the window. Through a gap in the huddle +of suburban dwellings and factories, looming dark against the deep-blue +dusk of evening, a blade of pallid light pointed upward to something +invisible in the sky. "What is that?" the overseas voice asked, +awestruck. While she spoke, the giant shaft moved a little and then +stopped. It seemed, human-wise, to reconsider. Another bolder shaft shot +up beyond it, seeming to say: "This way! Have at them, brother!" The +doubtful one quivered, and flashed upward, only to be hidden as the +train rushed on into the intervening immensity which was London. + +"The new searchlights," Madge remarked in a dry tone. "Rum if we should +come in for a Zeppelin raid!" + +"How dim it is in London!" Nan said, as she stepped out of the railway +carriage. "There must be a fog." + +"No. They keep the lights low these days." + +On the opposite side of the platform another train, a very long one, was +discharging its passengers. Most of these people, with untidy hair and +sleep-defrauded eyes, were dressed in stained and tumbled odds and ends. +Some were in working-clothes; women in great aprons, many carrying +babies; little children holding to their skirts; and nearly every soul +in the motley company, even the children, had one or more bundles, bags, +or boxes in their hands. They were like people who had been waked +suddenly out of a nightmare and told to run for the train. They seemed +not to see the prosaic sights of the platform. The look of nightmare was +still in their eyes. A middle-aged woman and an old man stood clinging +together. The saddest immigrant ever landed in the New World had not +shown a face like these. + +"Where do they come from?" Nan was looking nearly as bewildered as the +foreign-speaking horde. + +"They come from Belgium," Napier said. + +Singleton was waiting to hand Nan and Miss Greta into his cab. + +"_Non! non!_" a high, agitated voice said in passing, "_les Allemands +n'ont pas depasse la ligne Ostende-Menin!_" + +Out in the street newsboys were crying an extra: "Great battle raging! +_Arrival of Canadian Troops!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +About noon the next day a couple of porters stood waiting for the +service-lift at the Royal Palace hotel. Each man had a sole-leather +trunk on his shoulder, a trunk so new that the initialing "G. V. S." was +still wet. It was something else which halted Napier in the act of +sending up his card to Miss Ellis, a glimpse of Singleton's face behind +an outspread newspaper. + +"Cabs full of stuff keep coming," was the gentleman's _sotto voce_ +comment. + +Napier wondered drily that anybody should expect to get the stuff out of +England. + +"Personal wardrobe. Member of household of cabinet minister. Special +privileges. And nobody knows better that avoidance of publicity is worth +thousands of pounds to Sir William and, I daresay, to the Government. +She's playing it for all she's worth. She's got this Mr. Julian Grant in +her pocket, too. He's up with her now." + +The lift came down with Nan. She made a little hurried bow, and was for +escaping. Napier stood there in front of her. + +"Just a minute." + +"I can't; I'm sorry. I haven't _got_ a minute." + +"Yes, you have," he said bitterly, "when I tell you it's about Miss +Greta's affairs." + +"Oh, about Greta--" + +The face was whiter, more transparent, than he had ever seen it. + +"You don't look as if you'd had a wink of sleep." + +Although Singleton had vanished, Nan showed little disposition to +linger. As Napier stood there, looking down at the face alight with +fidelity and eager service, he knew in his soul he was thankful there +wasn't time, nor this the place, to wring her heart with the disgraceful +truth about her friend. The last thing he expected to say was the first +to come out. + +"A ... you don't gather, I suppose, that Miss Greta is at all harassed +about money?" + +"It is kind of you to think that!" She smiled at him. "The fact is, +Greta--that is, I _did_ cable home last night. I am going back to the +bank now, to see if they've heard." + +Napier arrested her slight movement. "Just let me understand. Do you +mean that you've overdrawn your account?" + +"Oh, not overdrawn. But the gold I got this morning just finished it. I +seem to have needed a good deal of money lately, one way and another." + +"You got gold this morning, you say?" + +"Yes; wasn't it lucky? Greta has a prejudice against paper money. She +thinks it unsanitary." + +"Oh, I see. And you were able to give her all she needs--of the sanitary +sort?" + +"No. I could get only sixty pounds." + +"Not in gold?" + +"Forty in sovereigns, twenty in half-sovereigns." + +"You were uncommon lucky; but Miss Greta will have to give you back +that sixty pounds, or the inspector will take it away at the station." + +"Oh, surely not!" + +"Beyond a doubt. They don't allow more than twenty pounds to be taken +out of the country, and that mustn't be in gold." + +She stared. "What do people do who have hundreds of pounds in your +banks?" + +"They have to leave it behind till the end of the war." + +"Not Americans?" + +Nobody, he said significantly, would be allowed to carry English gold to +Germany. + +Gravely, for a moment, she considered the astonishing statement. + +"Heavens, the time!" Her eyes over his shoulder had found the clock. + +"Only a little after twelve." He didn't stir from the stand he'd taken +in front of her. + +"You don't realize how much there is to do," she pleaded. Then, as he +stood there so immovable, she made the best of it. "I believe, after +all, I'll tell you." + +"Better," he agreed. + +"Well, only half an hour ago we decided Greta couldn't go alone. I'm +going with her." + +All his life he would remember what he went through in those next +seconds. + +"Julian,"--she threw in with a hurried glance at Napier's face--"Julian +thinks it will be all right." + +"You imagine you'll be allowed to go?" Napier said, with infinitely more +firmness than he felt. + +"Who would try to prevent?" + +"Maybe your own embassy." + +"Oh, _the embassy_!" + +"It couldn't be anything but very unpleasant in Germany just now." + +"Not for an American," she said. + +"Even an American," he replied with an edge in his voice, "who has +already overdrawn at the bankers' and whose cable can't, I should say, +be answered in time." + +A teasing, tricksy expression put her burdened seriousness to flight. +"Of course I know, if I asked you, _you'd_ lend me what I need." + +"To go to Germany?" + +"Well, wouldn't you?" + +"No." + +She smiled. A secret rapture escaped out of her eyes. "You wouldn't?" +And then she seemed to put him to some test. "Julian is kinder." + +"That's as it should be," he said. + +She made a little harassed movement. "I must manage somehow. Julian's +going to get my ticket. He's telephoning about all that now. But Greta +wouldn't like me to ask Julian for a loan for _her_." + +Napier glanced at the clock. There was still, thank Heaven, the passport +difficulty. He scribbled a line on a card. All that was really essential +was to make Julian abandon his efforts to remove the obstacles, and Nan +would be spared what couldn't fail to be a horrible shock. His aching +tenderness for the girl asked why she should _ever_ know the truth +unless, indeed, Greta von Schwarzenberg should succeed in carrying off +the goose that laid the golden eggs. By all the gods, he must prevent +that! + +Eagerly she had watched him writing, and now she gave her own +interpretation to the card Napier despatched upstairs. "It _is_ kind of +you to come and see if you can help us. But you oughtn't to have kept +me! Send for a taxi, will you?" she called to the passing +commissionaire. "Julian's promised not to leave poor Greta alone till I +get back." + +Taxis were beginning to grow scarce in London. Napier had followed her +to the door; they could see the page-boy pursuing a cab. "Nan--" + +She began to speak in a nervous, forestalling haste. "You've never +understood about Greta. _I_ believe it's people of strong natures that +suffer the most. Last night she couldn't sleep!" + +"How do you know?" + +"I watched the crack of light under her door. Twice I knocked and tried +to make her let me come in. She wouldn't. 'Go to sleep,' she said. As if +I could! Once she unbolted the door and came on tiptoe into my room. +What do you think for? To get a needle out of my case. Greta! sewing! +And what do you think she found to sew? She wouldn't tell me, but I saw +this morning. She had been trying to put herself to sleep by changing +the buttons on that very-buttony ulster of hers. Took off all the round, +bumpy ones and put on a flat kind instead. _I_ can't see it's any +improvement. But, then, I always hate buttons that don't button +anything, except when they're on cute little page-boys." + +The cab had rushed up to the door with Buttons on the footboard. Another +of the button brotherhood stood by Napier's side. + +"Will you please, sir, come up to seventy-two?" + + * * * * * + +He heard Julian's high voice through the closed door, and as it was +opened, "All that doesn't matter a straw," he was shouting impatiently +into the receiver. "Those regulations, you know as well as I do, can be +set aside for the special case. I _know_ she'll have to have a passport. +You've got to tell the fella at the American Embassy. What? Look here, +Tommy, you don't understand. I'll be round before you go to luncheon." + +Napier had made his way among cardboard boxes and clothes-encumbered +chairs, to the sofa where Miss Greta half sat, half lay, in a becoming +mauve tea-gown. She gave him her hand. + +"Hello!" said Julian, already looking up a new telephone number. + +Madge came out of the adjoining bedroom, dragging an enormous +brown-paper parcel along the floor. "Did you know Nan had got you the +sealskin coat? How do, Mr. Gavan. It's a love of a coat. You'll wear it, +won't you?" + +"No; pack it," said Miss Greta, indifferently. + +"But on the boat, Miss Greta. You'll want some warm--" + +"I've _got_ a coat," she said impatiently. "Take that thing back where +you found it." + +"I say,"--Julian jumped up to lend a hand--"I didn't know you'd come +back, Madge. I might as well go now and see about the passport. What's +this?" + +"Can't imagine. That's why I brought it in." Between Madge and her +unskilful assistant, the cord round the great bundle, already loose, +came off. The contents bulged. Julian picked the unwieldy thing up in +his arms, and a fold of heavy fur oozed out. And then the whole thing +had half slithered out of his hold and fell along the floor. + +"Lawks!" remarked Madge, with wide eyes on the superb black-fox rug, +beaver-lined. + +"Too heavy for anything but a Russian sledge," Julian objected. + +"Well, _will_ you take it back in there, and put it in the canvas +hold-all!" Miss Greta settled back wearily against the ulster, as Madge +and Julian struggled into the next room with the rug between them. "I +understood Madge was going to bring the maid to do the packing," Miss +Greta murmured discontentedly. + +Napier leaned forward. + +"Do you approve this plan of Miss Ellis going to Germany?" he asked. + +"I can easily believe you don't approve it," she said with a gleam of +_Schadenfreude_. + +"I do more than disapprove," he answered under his breath. "I am going +to prevent it." + +"Oh? And how do you propose to do that?" + +"I had meant to put a spoke in the passport wheel. But there's a +better--a shorter way." + +"Oh?" + +He leaned nearer. "I have done my part to prevent Miss Ellis's +knowing"--Greta raised her china-blue eyes--"the things some of the rest +of us know." + +"You are very considerate--of Miss Ellis." + +"Exactly. I am too considerate of her to let her even apply for a +passport without my first of all--enlightening her before you leave." + +"Ah,"--she drew in her breath--"you _would_, would you?" + +Napier was aware of having to brace himself to meet the unexpected dart +of malignity out of the round eyes. But it passed--taking in the open +door of the bedroom as it dropped. And in its place came pure scorn, +controlled, intensely quiet, as she inquired in her society manner: "And +you think Nan would believe you? You suppose for one moment that your +word would stand any chance against mine?" + +Napier concealed his harrowing doubt on this head. "I am to understand, +then, you are willing that the facts we have been at pains to suppress +should be known? Very well. I'll begin by enlightening Mr. Grant and +saving him the trouble of seeing about the passport." He caught the +sudden shift of focus in the china-blue eyes. "That's what I came up +for," Napier added. + +There was silence for an instant, except for the talk floating in +through the open door: "No, let's fold it in three. I'll show you." + +Was it the threat to enlighten Julian which had given her pause? "We +have Singleton downstairs,"--Napier quietly suggested witnesses for the +convincing of Mr. Grant--"and Grindley up." + +"As if I didn't know!" + +"Then you must know, too, that we are none of us making this experience +harder for you than is necessary. But"--their eyes met--"we are not +going to let you take that girl along." + +"Couldn't live without her, eh?" she burst out. For the first time in +Napier's experience of her there was a common tang in her tone. + +He rose to his feet. "Simply, she is not going with you. I thought you +might prefer to decide this yourself, or to tell her you have +ascertained that the passport difficulty is insuperable; anything you +like." She sat looking down on the film of handkerchief held affectedly +in the thick, white hand. There was no sign of anxiety or haste in +either her face or her weary attitude. "The alternative," Napier went on +in a quick undertone, "is that she will be staying behind with full +knowledge of all that we have up to now kept back." + +She turned to him with smothered vehemence. "It never was my _plan_ to +take her. I don't know what on earth I'd do with her." + +Napier repressed the jubilation crying out in his heart. "The question, +as I say, is merely, will you give her up after struggle and exposure or +will you do it quietly?" + +She seemed to make a rapid calculation. "If I agree to this, will you +promise that she shall never know what I've gone through, this last +twenty-four hours?" The handkerchief went to her lips. + +"No," said Napier, sternly, "but I'll promise that I won't enlighten her +before you leave." + +"And Mr. Grant? If you tell _him_, you may as well tell every one. He +couldn't keep anything to save his neck." + +"If _you_ keep to the course I've laid down, I don't know any special +reason for enlightening Mr. Grant." Napier knew that he was showing +weakness over the point. Yet, after all, in a few hours the woman would +be out of the country. Behind that wall of the German lines she would be +lost. + +By the time Julian returned to the sitting-room, Miss Greta had accepted +the inevitable. + +"I don't want to seem rude,"--she turned to Napier with her weary +grace--"but I think I must ask to be left alone awhile. Perhaps you'll +be so _very_ kind as to explain to Mr. Grant that in these circumstances +of family affliction"--only Napier recognized the Adelphi touch in the +phrase and in the lace-bordered handkerchief pressed to heroic +lips--"the more I think of it, the more I feel it would be best for me +to go home alone." + +Napier went back to the hotel at five o'clock with Julian, who drove his +own big car to take the three to the station. The progress was slow and +penitential, for Miss Greta declined to lose sight of the two taxis +which followed with the luggage. Napier, with Madge at his side, sitting +opposite Nan and Miss Greta, found himself taking refuge from the +unconscious reproach in Nan's face by studying the buttons on Miss +Greta's ulster. There was a great many of those buttons. The immense +labor of changing them induced thoughtfulness. They were thicker, but +weren't the bigger ones exactly sovereign size? The smaller on collar, +cuffs, and pocket-flaps--weren't they precisely of half-sovereign +dimensions, excepting, again in thickness? He began to count.... + +"Look at that shop!" Nan leaned forward over the long narrow cardboard +box she was carrying. + +The front glass was smashed, the place empty. Over the door was a sign, +"Zimmerman, Family Baker." A little way on stood yet another shop with +demolished front. On the opposite side was a third. There were seven in +all, over each a German name. + +Nan looked away. Miss Greta seemed not to have heard the exclamation, +seemed to see nothing. + +Some recruits for the army came lumping along, out of step, a sorry +enough crew, pasty-faced, undersized, in ill-fitting, shabby, civilian +clothes. + +The china-blue eyes that had "gone blind" in front of raided German +shops were full of vision before this mockery of militarism. As she +looked out upon the human refuse for which war had found a use at last, +the subtle pity in Miss Greta's face asked as plain as words, "What +chance have these poor deluded 'volunteers' against the well-drilled +German, fed and fashioned for war?" + +The station at last! As Napier helped Miss Greta out, the front of her +ulster swung heavily against his leg. "Sovereigns!" he said to himself. + +The station was already densely crowded. While Napier and Madge mounted +guard over Behemoth and the lesser luggage, Julian and Nan, with Miss +Greta between them, disappeared in the crush. + +When the reconnoitering party reappeared, Singleton was with them, +porters at his beck, in his hand Miss Greta's ticket, passport, and +German and Dutch money to the value of twenty pounds. He met the chief +inspector as if by appointment, near the luggage, that loomed so +important by contrast with that of other travelers. + +To Miss Greta--although in her ugly ulster she looked less a person of +consequence than she might--was plainly accorded a special +consideration. Mr. Singleton was there to see to that. He could not, to +be sure, prevent some respectful interrogation as to the money, etc., +she was taking out of the country, some perfunctory examination of +luggage. + +The only anxious face in the group was Nan's. Miss Greta, calm as a May +morning, her round eyes trustingly raised to the inspector's face, with +eighty to ninety pounds in English gold on her coat, and how much more +elsewhere who should say, offering her purse and keys. "One is an +American lock. I may have to help you with that," she said sweetly. + +Napier half-turned his back on them, but he stood so that he could keep +an eye on the stricken face above the long cardboard box which Nan was +carrying as if it were an infant. Through the din Greta's innocent +accents reached him. "Nobody ever told me! Oh, dear, my poor little +savings!" When Nan turned her tear-filled eyes away from the group about +Behemoth, Napier joined her. + +"What shall you do after--after she is gone?" he asked. + +"I haven't an idea beyond going back to the hotel to wait for my cable +from home." She made a diversion of opening the long cardboard box and +taking out six glorious roses tied with leaf-green and rose-colored +ribbon. But she held the flowers absently. + +"I shall be at my chambers. If I can be of any--" + +"Oh, thank you. I shan't need anything." + +When Napier faced round again, Greta was smiling gently on the melted +inspector. Perhaps that functionary wouldn't have "forgotten" to +confiscate the few pieces of gold so frankly shown had he known they +were the mere residue left over from the lady's midnight activities. + +They found themselves on the platform with, unhappily, time still to +spare. Singleton made polite conversation with Miss Greta, abetted by +Julian and Madge--who was taking the approaching parting with +astonishing composure. A lesson to poor Nan who couldn't keep the tears +out of her eyes. Her effort to smile very nearly cost both her and +Napier their self-possession. She went abruptly away from him, and stood +dumb behind Greta at Julian's side. + +"Take your places!" + +A whistle blew. Miss Greta was shaking hands with Singleton. "Thank you +_so_ much. You _have_ been kind." Her good-by to Julian and to Napier +were quieter, but entirely cordial. She embraced Madge with dramatic +fervor. "My darling child! We'll never forget--" + +Nan stood, the tears running down her cheeks unchecked, and probably +unaware. A little apart she stood, all her sympathy, her very soul, +flowing out as a final offering. "Good-by, my Nanchen!" Miss Greta +kissed her on both cheeks. "You'll write me? And you won't forget me?" + +Nan was far past power of words. She thrust the roses toward Greta with +a look that made Napier himself feel he could fall to crying. Even Miss +Greta seemed touched by some final compunction. The carriage-door had no +sooner slammed on her than she turned suddenly as if she had forgotten +something. "Nanchen!" she leaned out and took the girl's face in her two +hands. She bent and whispered. The guards shouted. The train began to +move. + +"Oh, will you? _Will_ you, Greta?" Nan was running along the platform +with upturned face. + +Miss Greta leaned far out, giving a flutter of white to the wind and +leaving a smile for memory. + +Thank God! Napier breathed an inward prayer. She can't do any more harm +here. + +Nan stood staring at the last coaches. Napier touched her arm. "Well?" +he said gently. + +"I _oughtn't_ to be miserable," she wiped her wet cheeks. "To have Greta +soon to help me to bear things--ought to make it possible to bear them +now." + +"You are still counting on her help?" + +She nodded, "I'm to hold myself ready." + +"Ready for what?" + +"To join her. I shall pack my trunk to-night." + +At the tail of the dispersing crowd, they were following Julian and +Madge down the platform. Napier slowed his pace, looking down at the +face beside him. Weeks, months, of passionate, fruitless waiting--no! "I +promised her," he said,--"the lady we've just seen the last of--that I +wouldn't enlighten you about her true character till she was gone. You +won't feel so badly at losing her when you hear what we know about Miss +von Schwarzen--" + +"Oh, oh!" Nan stood quite still an instant. "I thought Greta did you an +injustice! You--you disappoint me horribly." She fled on to catch up the +others. + +After all, what was the use of quarreling about a woman who was out of +the Saga? In a little while Nan would be able to bear the truth. Not +yet, it was too soon. + +Julian was to take her back to the hotel; and that wasn't the worst. +Napier couldn't even go away by himself. He knew he ought to see Madge +to Lowndes Square, where the McIntyre motor and maid were to call at +seven o'clock for the purpose of conveying the young lady to Lamborough. +It was, at all events, something to be thankful for that Madge wasn't +howling. So far as Napier had observed, she hadn't shed a tear. This +wasn't the first occasion upon which Madge's late self-possession had +vaguely puzzled Napier. + +The drive back to Lamborough was a silent one, except for that +extraordinary five minutes or so, after Madge had turned to say, "I wish +Nan had come back with us, don't you?" + +"Yes," he said, "I wish she had." + +"I begged her to. I said, 'What shall you do at that hotel?' and she +said she hardly knew yet. She'd see. Rotten arrangement, I call it." + +Napier smiled down at the girl. It occurred to him she was looking +tired, too. And she hadn't cried a tear that Napier had seen. "You seem +to be getting on better with our American friend," he said, teasing. +"Stood it like a Spartan, even when you thought she was going to Germany +with Miss Greta." + +"Well, I thought Miss Greta needed _some_body." + +"But didn't you want the somebody to be _you_?" + +"No." + +He looked at her again. "I suppose you're expecting to have Miss Greta +back after the war." + +"No," she said again, looking straight in front of her. + +The thought of the solicitude of her parents to keep the dear child in +the dark, suddenly flashed over him, along with the conviction, Madge +knows! + +Was it possible she accepted Greta's guilt? He couldn't make it out at +all. "Weren't you sorry to see her go?" + +"It was horrid," she admitted. After a few seconds she found a steadier +voice in which to say, "It's been pretty horrid anyway, you know. We +could prevent people from saying things, but we couldn't prevent them +from looking things. They _wanted_ her to be a disgusting spy. They +hated her worse for not being." + +"Why don't you want her back when the war is over?" + +She drew her red eyebrows together in a frown. "I expect," she said +slowly, "it will be best for Germans to stay at home." + +Napier laughed, but he felt sorry, in a way, to see Wildfire growing so +sage. Evidently she had gone through a great deal in these weeks, a +great deal of which she had given no sign. Behind her homesickness for +her idol, Napier detected a great relief at the idol's being out of the +way of suspicion and misprizing. + +"That was why I wanted so to go and see her off. To try to make up a +little; to do everything we _could_ do just because I felt there'd never +be any other chance." The tears came at last. "She _was_ nice, wasn't +she, Mr. Gavan?" + +"She was wonderful." And before they fell back into that silence that +lasted till they reached Lamborough, he asked, "How long have you known, +Meggy?" + +"Been sure only since yesterday--those men, what they did to her room." + +There was good stuff in the McIntyre child, he said to himself. The part +she'd played wouldn't have shamed Napier or even a Nicholson Grant. + +There was nobody about to receive them on their return. When Madge had +gone up to her mother, Napier took his way down the hall to Sir +William's room. But he caught sight of him through the open door of the +drawing-room at the far end. Sir William sat reading. That was natural +enough, and he was sitting in his own chair. But as far away as Napier +could see his chief, he was vaguely aware of something odd about the +figure that was, or should be, so intimately familiar. It wasn't merely +that Sir William did not instantly rise to his feet, seal-jingling, and +call out, "Evening paper? Anything new about--" The first impression was +of a man smaller than Napier had realized Sir William to be. Or had +he--Napier half smiled at the grotesque idea--had he shrunken in these +last hours? The great chair Miss Greta had fetched for him from +Kirklamont certainly did seem ludicrously too big for a being so +diminished, not only in body, but in spirit. His quick turns and vivid +ways--what, Napier wondered with a dreamlike feeling as he walked down +the room, had happened to all the familiar, foolish, endearing oddities? +For an instant the thought thrust shrewdly, Is he dead? No, he moved. + +"Well, sir, we have done your commission." + +Like the action of a wooden automaton, one short-fingered hand was +pushed out toward the reading-desk. It seemed to point to the small +phial that lay on the ledge of the rack; the phial he had carried in his +pocket for months now as precaution in the event of an attack of +angina. But Sir William's eyes were not on the phial. They were fixed on +an open telegram. + +And it was that telegram Sir William had sat reading. For how long? + +The telegram regretted to inform him that his son, Captain Colin +McIntyre, while bravely leading his battalion, had been killed in +action. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Whatever it was she had heard or not heard from Germany, Nan presently +unpacked her trunk and installed herself in a flat in Westminster, with +a servant, two aged Belgian refugee women, and the grand-son of one of +them, a little boy of five. + +That for some time was the extent of Napier's knowledge of what was +going on. + +For the rest of that bewildering, tormenting autumn he had, with one or +two exceptions, only fleeting and infrequent glimpses of the girl. And +this in spite of the fact that she and Madge had set up an intimate +friendship. Until a certain day in December, the two were often together +both at the Lowndes Square house and at Nan's flat. The Belgian women, +Napier gathered, were a sore trial. But that is another story. + +Napier knew quite well he hadn't his lack of sympathy with her Belgian +complications to thank for the sense of _gene_, of being on new and +uncertain ground in such encounters with Nan as the times permitted. Was +it because she knew, and resented, his having prevented her going to +Germany in Greta's wake? Or was it because some inkling had reached her +as to the rifling of Greta's room at Lamborough? Madge couldn't have +resisted the temptation to tell Nan the whole story by now. And why +should Napier alone keep silence? Why, anyway, keep up this fiction of +Greta's impeccability? "I'll have it out with Nan at the very first +opportunity!" + +Napier was almost happy, for a time, anticipating his first opportunity. + +It came after a highly uncomfortable luncheon at Lowndes Square, the +occasion of Julian's last appearance in that house where, ever since +boyhood, he had been so welcome. + +Ten minutes after the older people had sat down, Madge came in, bringing +Julian and Nan Ellis. The girls wore that look of happy responsibility +that had begun to shine on young faces in England. + +"I've joined the Emergency Corps," Madge announced. + +"Your new excuse for being late for meals," Sir William exclaimed, with +a _brusquerie_ intended to strike a few enlivening sparks out of +Wildfire. And she actually let it pass. + +Lady McIntyre, in her fashionable mourning, more shrunken and piteous +than ever, went on addressing to Julian her polite inanities, couched +for the most part in that form of acknowledged intellectual poverty, the +question. How many more months did Julian think this dreadful war was +going to last? "They" couldn't get home by Christmas now, _could_ they? +Wasn't it wicked, after _promising_? And what did Julian think about the +letters in the papers about possible air raids? + +"Wildest folly ever talked!" Sir William interjected. + +"It's true," said Lady McIntyre, hopefully. "William has never believed +there's the least chance of a Zeppelin reaching England." + +"As much as your descending on Berlin out of a parachute. To insure +against air raids is to waste money and cocker up the Germans." + +"Do you think so, too?" Lady McIntyre fixed her blue eyes on Julian +Grant's face. "Do you know, in spite of what William says, _I_ can't +help feeling that every one who goes out at night in these dreadful +times ought to take precautions." As no one responded, she strengthened +her point. "I hear the streets grow darker and darker. Every night--yes, +every single night--people are run over. The only way is for everybody +who goes out at night to insure themselves." + +Nobody seemed to have the heart to disturb her apparent belief that to +insure against accident meant that a stop would be put to these +regrettable affairs. + +"All this talk in the papers," Sir William went on, "is pure concession +to panic. Like the nonsense about what the submarines might do. Nothing +could suit Germany's book better." + +"Except, I suppose, sinking our ships." For the first time Julian took +some interest in the conversation. + +"Sinking our ships!" quavered Lady McIntyre. + +"I should have thought the loss of the _Aboukir_ and _Cressy_ (those +awful casualty-lists!) might have made people a little less ready to +talk about our invulnerable Navy." + +"So,"--Sir William laid down his knife and fork and fell to +seal-rattling under the table--"so you've come now to doubt the power of +the British Navy!" + +"I've come," said Julian, "to see the danger of not doubting it." + +The seals joined the general silence. + +"I wonder," Sir William remarked dryly, "what your father would say to +your views." + +"I could tell you, sir, if it mattered." + +"If it mattered! God bless my soul!" Sir William looked at Julian for +the first time with cold dislike. + + * * * * * + +After luncheon the younger members of the party still hung aimlessly +about the table in the hall, while Sir William and Lady McIntyre opened +the letters brought by the latest post. + +Napier tried in vain, by any of the unmarked means, to detach Nan from +the others. Finally he said, with less indirectness than he often +permitted himself, "I never see you now. Are you still too devoured by +the Belgian locusts to have anything left for your older--friends?" + +"Locusts! How _can_ you? I am not at all devoured. Or, if I am, it's by +something _quite_ different." She said it with her air of new +importance. + +"But in the midst of it all,"--she lowered her voice and spoke now as +one positively beset by weighty affairs--"I keep worrying about Julian. +Just because,"--she glanced back at him as he stood talking "Emergency +Corps" with Madge--"just because he doesn't in the least worry about +himself. Have you heard about the way his relations are behaving?" + +"No," said Napier, disingenuously. "How are they behaving?" + +"Simply abominably. Some of his friends, too. They cold-shoulder him in +private; and in public--they cut him!" Her eyes gleamed with anger. "If +they think that's the way to discourage Julian, they know very little!" + +"I wish some one would discourage him from rubbing my old man the wrong +way." + +"He doesn't mean to," she said, with a proprietary air that haunted +Gavan afterwards, "but, you see, Sir William and Julian approach +everything from opposite poles." + +Behind his soreness and annoyance, Napier was secretly amused at "the +child's judicial air," as he characterized it to himself. "At opposite +poles, are they? It would be interesting to know what they were--those +'poles.'" + +"Oh, you think I don't know? Well, I do. Sir William's idea of the +problem of government is the same as his idea of the problem of the +individual. To acquire. Julian's is to apportion. To administer." + +"Who told you all that?" he inquired gently. + +She reddened. "You can't say it isn't so. To take care of other people's +interests," repeated the parrot, "is the only way to take care of your +own." + +"Does Julian find the axiom work in his case?" + +She reflected a trifle anxiously. "You've heard then?" + +"Heard--?" + +"His father has cut down Julian's income." + +No, Napier hadn't heard that, but he wasn't surprised. Nan looked at +him, indignant. + +"You aren't surprised? You take it as a matter of course!" She turned +away her head as she said, "Oh! I wish I could just once see his +mother--" She stopped short. After considering an instant, "You couldn't +manage it, I suppose?" + +No, _that_ wasn't a thing Napier could manage. He positively welcomed +the exclamation from Lady McIntyre which cut the colloquy short. + +"Another--_upon_ my word!" An envelope fluttered to the waste-paper +basket. She held an open paper in her hand. + +"Another what, mum?" Madge left Julian to lean over her mother's +shoulder. "Oh!" One glance was enough for Madge. She turned away. But +one glance didn't suffice for Lady McIntyre. "It's too, _too_ much!" She +went over to Sir William, who had withdrawn with his letters to the +window. They stood talking in lowered voices. + +Nan's inquiring look met Madge's offhand explanation: "Another of +Greta's bills. That makes L160, just for furs." + +"Oh!" Nan stood up, then, in an access of shyness, "Just go and ask your +mother to let me have it." + +"No good!" Wildfire shook her mane. "She won't. She thinks you've had +enough of 'em sent direct to you." + +"Your mother doesn't understand. It's all right. I'm taking care of +these things for Greta." + +"Have you had another letter?" Wildfire demanded. + +"No. I told you she's nursing her father day and night. She hasn't time +to; besides, it's understood." + +"Why do some of the bills come to us and some to you?" + +Nan stood nonplussed an instant and then said: + +"It's all right, I tell you." + +"You mean you think she's going to pay you back?" + +"Well, of course." Nan crossed the room and stood a moment in front of +Lady McIntyre, with hand extended and speaking in an undertone. + +"You may take it from me"--Sir William didn't moderate his tone--"Miss +von Schwarzenberg _won't_ pay the money back." His voice rose higher +over the low protest. "For one thing, she can't." + +"You think she hasn't got it?" Nan inquired. + +"Oh, I haven't much doubt she's _got_ it; but even if she wanted to +repay you, she won't be allowed to send money out of Germany." + +"Surely she'll be allowed to pay her debts?" + +"Miss Greta would tell you, 'No trading allowed with the enemy.'" Sir +William dismissed the matter with decision. + +"You hear that, Julian? Not _allowed_ to pay her debts!" + +Nan's instinctive turning to Julian for sympathy and understanding was +no more lost on Napier than Julian's comment, "There's no end to the +little wickednesses of war as well as the great central one." He threw +down the illustrated paper he'd been glancing at and took his hat. "Come +along," he said to Nan under his breath. "Let's get out of this." + +"Good-by." She held out her hand to Napier as he stood looking at the +paper Sir William had given him. "_I'm_ sure, if you aren't, Greta +didn't know that horrid new rule." + +"Good-by," was all Napier said. + +"Of course she didn't know!" Julian atoned for the other's omission. +"Come," he repeated impatiently, as Nan stood saying last things to +Madge. "They're expecting us." + +She started. "Expecting me too?" + +"Yes, expecting you." + +The girl glowed. No more urging needed. + + * * * * * + +Napier had, even then, a fairly shrewd idea of who was expecting them. +And he had let her go without asking her the question he meant to ask! +Was it worth while, after all? Wasn't it enough to know that since Greta +von Schwarzenberg had left bills for furs, and trunks, and clothing to +be paid for by her friends, she would inevitably leave a still heavier +account to be paid for by her enemy? Napier "paid" every time he met Nan +Ellis, and he knew he paid. + +A deep disheartenment laid hold of him. His only escape from it was +work. Enough of that and to spare. He had difficulty in finding time for +drill, even at "the oddest hours"--odd for a young gentleman of his +habits. Yet for the work that lay closest to his heart odd hours were +all that Gavan had. This came about partly by reason of Sir William's +increased need for, and increased dependence on, his secretary, partly +because of his impatience with the desire of men like Gavan to join +their university corps, or some other O. T. C. "and waste their time +playing at soldiers." It was no good for Gavan to remind Sir William of +the lack of officers to fill the gaps abroad, and the lack of +instructors at home. "By the time you'd be able to instruct anybody the +war'll be over!" + +And still Gavan managed double duty during the last weeks of the +fateful old year and the early days of the problematic new. The thoughts +of people at home, after following day by day, hour by hour, the bloody +November struggle for Ypres, settled now on those survivors who were +making their first acquaintance with the stark misery of winter in the +trenches. It stood to reason this sort of thing _couldn't_ go on. + +The next thing would be peace. + +Those who believed in Kitchener agreed that no man as shrewd as K. of K. +had ever made a prophecy so absurd on the face of it as that alleged +dictum of his, "The war will last three years." The only way of +understanding it was to interpret it as a recruiting call, and a final +flourish in the face of the Teuton. K. of K. must have 100,000 men. Have +'em at once, too. Let the Germans put _that_ in their pipes and smoke +it! + +Meanwhile the Germans were struggling for Calais and bombarding Rheims, +and over on the other side of the world President Wilson talked peace. + +Napier watched the gradual khaki-ing that came over the male population +of the United Kingdom; watched regiments marching by day to the tune of +"Tipperary," marching by night very quietly, on each man's shoulder a +long white bundle, like little canvas bolsters--men on their way to +entrain for the front, following in the wake of that fourth of the +Expeditionary Army which had already fallen. With as little publicity as +possible, hospitals multiplied. People began to look upon wounded +soldiers in the streets without that shuddering, first passion of pity, +that mingled gratitude and anger at the price exacted of those maimed +men. "The price of our present, and our children's future safety," said +the many. "The price of our past blundering," said the few. Of these, +Julian, in season and out of season, rubbed in the unwelcome truth. + +Napier was seeing nearly as little in these days of Julian as of Nan. +They had had high words over the development and intensification of +Julian's opposition to the war, and in particular over his strictures on +the Government. Napier had studiously avoided all reference to Nan +Ellis. Such efforts as had been possible to keep in touch with her were +mainly unsuccessful. He had a minimum of time he could call his own, and +she apparently had none at all. She was never at the little flat in +Westminster except late at night, and she was seldom in Lowndes Square. +Madge, too, resented this preoccupation on the part of her new ally. +"Oh, don't ask _me_ where she is. Gone to see some of Mr. Grant's queer +friends, I suppose." + +By this side wind and that, he gathered that Nan was being swept into +the little pacifico-philosophic group and was thick as thieves with +certain men and women whose names were beginning to be anathema to the +general public. Gradually, in Napier's mind, the conviction tightened. +If something isn't done, they'll not only have made a convert of that +girl, they'll be making use of her--some use or other, God knew +what!--for their nefarious ends. + +Instead of Julian's protecting her, he'd likely as not do the other +thing. All from the loftiest motives! + +And upon that, Napier's first motion of enmity toward the man who had +been his closest friend. Strangely to his own sense, with far more +bitterness than he resented Julian's notorious anti-war work, Napier +would, as he knew now, resent the harnessing of the airy spirit of the +girl to that lumbering and ill-looked-on car. + +What was to be done? + +He had stood aside out of loyalty to his friend, who was also (as he +reminded himself a thousand times) the first comer in the field. The +field of private feeling. Yes. But there was no obligation upon Napier +to stand aside while the girl he loved was swamped in a bog of +disloyalty to the country, and of personal reprobation. Worse. Of +personal danger. + +No! he wasn't going to look on at that and not raise a hand. The old +struggle which he thought he had abandoned, wearing this new face, +became possible once more. Possible? It became inevitable. For it had +become a duty. So he told himself. + +The trouble was that on the rare occasions when he was with her, +something in the new post-Greta manner of the girl--an intangible but +effectual barrier--so barred the way to even the beginning of renewed +confidence, that Napier, over-worked, over-anxious, found the edge of +his impulse turned. He would leave her, saying to himself, "I'll have +this out with Julian." And when he found himself with Julian for a few +hasty minutes, "having it out" proved so baulked and inconclusive a +business, "I must tackle Nan," Napier would say to himself. + +Not that he failed altogether to tackle Julian, nor to tackle him on the +admittedly burning questions: such as Julian's speech introducing a +deputation to the Prime Minister, or that highly provocative letter +assailing British pre-war diplomacy, the letter rejected by the "Times" +and "accepted, of course, by the dingiest radical rag in the kingdom." + +"They are using you!" Napier had burst out. + +"I am content to be used. I ask nothing better." + +More quietly, more gravely, Napier agreed it was a thing about which a +man must be his own judge. But _by so much_ he must hesitate to judge +for others. "The Pacifists are making a cat's-paw of you, I tell you. If +you like that for yourself ..." he shrugged. Then, abandoning his +momentary return to the _laissez-aller_ form of other days, he looked +straight into Julian's eyes and with an earnestness that would have +enlightened any one but Grant, "I don't know how you reconcile it to +your conscience to involve a girl in such ..." he broke off. As Julian +stood waiting serenely: "A girl as young and as far away from home--" + +"Nan! Oh, you don't know Nan!" + + * * * * * + +Another time: "Why drag her into--all this?" Gavan demanded. "It isn't +as if she could do anything." + +"Oh, can't she!" + +"_What_, in the name of--" + + * * * * * + +Although Julian wouldn't answer, an opportunity came to put the question +to Nan. Napier found himself sitting opposite her at dinner in Lowndes +Square on the night following the House of Commons debate on German +spies. That topic, in the forefront of every mind, was ignored by tacit +consent. Conversation fell for a few memorable minutes on the appalling +statement, just issued officially, that there had been 57,000 casualties +in the British Expeditionary Force up to the end of October. How many +had fallen since in the bloody struggle about Ypres, fiercest of the +war, and how many on either side would survive the stark misery of that +first little-prepared-for winter in the trenches, no one present had +heart to ask. But the question, urged in print and cried from platforms +by Julian and his friends, was there in the girl's face. + +Sir William seemed to answer by saying the one redeeming feature of the +business was that it was too awful to last. The Germans must see they +have failed. + +"Why," the girl asked, with her candid eyes on her host, "if the +Government believed that, why was Lord Kitchener calling for a hundred +thousand men?" + +"Oh, _that_--that was to show the Germans what they had to expect if +they _didn't_ come to their senses." + +While the dessert was going round, she got up, with a look at the clock +and an apology. It was understood that she had an engagement. + +"Always an emergency in these days," Sir William mocked pleasantly at +the Women's Corps. "Gavan, see they get her a taxi, will you?" + +The footman's whistle grew fainter as Napier helped her into her coat. +They hadn't been alone since those hurried moments on the platform after +Greta had gone. Something now in her slight awkwardness as she struggled +with her coat, her increased anxiety to be off ("I ought to have gone +ten minutes ago. I can always find a cab quicker than a footman") gave +Napier a feeling that he had misinterpreted her avoidance. Not the new +Greta-born distrust of him, but distrust of herself. His heart rose at +that quick conviction. Rogers wouldn't be long, he reassured her, and +then: "I wish he might, or, rather, I wish I hadn't to go back to the +House with Sir William. I'd take you wherever it is you are going." He +stopped suddenly. + +"Would you? Would you really? That's what I've been longing to ask. +_You_ wouldn't sit dumb, helpless, like me if once you'd heard Julian--" + +"I'm under the impression that I _have_ 'heard Julian.'" + +"No! no! not just arguing with you. I mean at one of the meetings." + +"I see. Where I can't answer back." + +"And now you're looking like that!" She turned away with nervous +abruptness, but he had interposed between her and the doorknob. + +"And you--have you any idea how unhappy _you_ are looking?" + +"Well, why not?--if it is, as Julian says, 'such a brute of a world.'" + +"_Julian_ oughtn't to think so," Napier said bitterly. "Julian has +you--" + +"Oh, has he! Poor Julian!" + +"Do you mean he hasn't?" They were both trembling. + +"I mean, whether he has or hasn't, we aren't rid of the miserableness. +Once you are started wrong, you can't get right, it seems. Not +without--" Suddenly her eyes filled. A shower of words tumbled out in a +shaken whisper: "At first--oh, for long, I thought you hardly knew I was +there, at Kirklamont, in the world! Then, when you began to notice me, +it was only to criticize me. Oh, I used to see you laughing; not with +your mouth, with your eyes. You laughed at Julian, too, for thinking I +was all right." She broke in upon his protest, which was none the less +horrified for being self-convicted. + +"Yes, yes; you tried to prevent Julian from caring. I could have +forgiven you that," she said, with her look of indignant candor; "yes, I +could _easily_ have forgiven you if you'd done it from any _nice_ +reason, like jealousy. You _didn't_ do it from a nice reason." Still +under her breath, she hurled it at him. + +"Hush! They might--" he glanced at the dining-room door. + +"You thought I shouldn't 'do.' Julian--well, maybe you know what he +thought. So I let him try to make up to me. He couldn't, but I let him +try. And what's come out of it all is that Julian--" + +"Yes, yes; I know, I know." + +"I've made him care! I've made him build on me! And can't you see"--she +seemed to arraign Napier's own loyalty as she stood there under the hall +light, vehement, unhappy--"can't you see Julian needs his friends now as +he never did before?" In the little pause her excitement mounted. "And +besides that, Julian's right about the war. And you are wrong. Oh, why +_are_ you!" she cried out of the aching that comes of conflict between +love of a person and hate of his creed. + +They heard a taxi stop. She caught up her gloves. "Do you know what I +kept thinking at dinner? It's what I always think when people talk like +Sir William, about letting the war go on for Kitchener's three mortal +years. I kept thinking that Julian won't ever come here again. And what +a pity it was! Unless you--_do_ come and hear him, Gavan, with me! +To-morrow afternoon. _Please!_" + +"I'd do most things for you," he said; "not that." + + * * * * * + +And then he went and did it. At least, he went alone. + +Had the authorities not believed that outside the narrow--so narrow as +to be negligible--limits of the League for a Negotiated Peace, no +general notice would be taken of so unpopular an enterprise, the +open-air meeting would have been interdicted. The authorities had not +reflected that unpopularity, if only it is great enough, is as sure a +draw as its opposite. + +Napier left the taxi and let himself be carried along in the human +current to a place opposite that part of the improvised platform where a +speaker stood facing the people. The thick-set figure of the ex-member +of Parliament stood in a storm of booing, of derisive shouts and groans +that ultimately drowned his appeal. + +No sooner had they howled him down than a much younger man stood up +there facing the crowd. Julian. He spoke for a good twenty minutes. His +boyishness, and that something of moral passion that compelled you to +listen to Julian, held the people quiet through the earlier minutes, and +held them muttering and threatening up to the bursting of the storm. + +His voice reached Napier tired and hoarse: + +"You don't believe the Germans were encircled in a band of iron? You +don't believe they hadn't sufficient outlet for their immense +capacities? Oh, no; the commercial greed of other nations didn't hem +them in! Tell me, then, what's behind this vast discovery of German +activity in lands not their own? What about the difficulty even in +England of combing them out of commerce, out of clubs, even out of +Parliament? What about the hold they have in Sweden and Holland; in +Genoa; in South America, not to speak of the United States? Now, notice. +No other nation has so disseminated itself about the globe in practical +activities. What's the reason? Can you answer that? Wrong. The reason is +that energy must go somewhere. The Germans weren't to have colonies; +they weren't to have seaports, not openly. So they took them in the only +way left. They took them by a vast, silent effort that has sown the +German broadcast over the world." + +Agreement as to that exploded in every direction. The speaker strained +his voice to dominate the din: + +"They didn't specially love us--the Germans. No; nor we them, perhaps." + +He was forced to wait till the enthusiasm which greeted that view had +spent itself. + +"Now, just think a moment. The Germans--I'm speaking of before the war, +remember--they believed theirs was the only true civilization." + +Wild derision from the English cockneys. The few soldiers scattered +through the crowd appeared to have less emotion to expend than did the +civilians. They listened stolidly. In the first lull the speaker went +on: + +"Now, why--why did these notorious home-lovers turn their backs on what +for them was the only true civilization? Why did they come here in such +numbers?" + +"To spy!" + +"To steal our jobs!" + +"'Peaceful penetration' for the ends of war!" + +"Listen! They overran us and other countries because we prevented the +legitimate expansion of the German Empire." + +High and clear over the confused shouting, "That's a lie!" a voice cried +angrily. The direct charge acted like a stimulant. The word "lie" was +caught up by a score of throats. + +"An' why ain't '_e_ at the front?" + +Above the increasing disorder Napier caught fragments from the platform: + +"Waste places of the earth, crying out for labor and development. Yes, +in bitter _need_ of something the German could give, _wanted_ to give--" + +But pandemonium had broken loose, and reigned irresistible for some +moments. As the wave of sound ebbed, those high, fife-like notes, +conquering hoarseness for a moment, soared above the din and over the +bobbing heads of the multitude: + +"_Waste_ places! Yet we grudged even the waste places to that supremely +hard-working people. Why?" + +A hail of answers, every one a stone of scorn. + +"As you don't seem to know why it was we grudged these places to the +Germans, you'd better let me tell you. We grudged them to an industrious +people because the people weren't British people. What happened? No! no! +_no!_ Listen! The Germans--the Germans--" + +Cries of "Belgium!" mixed with booing and cursing, drowned the voice +again and again till the moment when it rose with "they" in lieu of the +word intolerable. + +"They have done what you say. I'm not here to deny it. They've turned +the most fertile lands of Europe into wastes. Why? Because we refused +them the places that were already waste. Energy must go somewhere. +Energy that could have helped to save the world has gone to the +devastation of Belgium, to the ruin of France. Gone to the torture and +death of tens of thousands of British men. Whose fault? Ours, _ours_, I +tell you!" + +A roar went up as the crowd surged forward. Napier, carried with it, saw +men near the foot of the platform gesticulating wildly with clenched +fists above their heads: + +"Liar! Pro-German!" + +And still the penny-whistle voice shrilled clear a moment over the +turgid outpouring of muddy minds: + +"The vast crime, the unparalleled lunacy of war! If I have a private +quarrel and I kill my opponent, I am hanged for a felon. If the +Government I live under has a public quarrel, and at their bidding I +kill some man I never saw before, I am a patriot. _No!_ I am a +murderer." + +That was more than the soldiers could stand. They joined in the rush for +the column. Yet, as Napier remembered afterward, the soldiers who by +implication had been called murderers were less like wild beasts in +their fury than the men who had stayed at home. The men weren't in khaki +who strove, vainly at the first essay, by dint of climbing on other +men's shoulders, to storm the platform. + +As for Napier, he would never have been able to get anywhere near the +speaker but that his precipitation was taken by those about him for +uncontrollable rage. Even with the aid of hatred to forge him a way, he +found getting to the front a cursedly impeded business. Then came that +moment of sheer physical sickness at his closer vision of the pack of +wolves ravening below the unfriended figure. Julian, facing the onset, +facing the hate-inflamed eyes in heads just appearing above the +platform; Julian still crying peace in that appalling loneliness which +typified his yet greater loneliness in a nation and a time given up to +war. + +Ruffians with villainous faces, and simpletons fired with the +responsibility of standing up for England, doing it so safely, too, by +means of breaking the head of one young gentleman--up the platform they +scrambled after their ringleaders and closed round the speaker. + +In those last few hard-won yards Napier had collected a policeman. But +above the attackers had fought Julian, to the edge of the platform. +Napier had an instant's glimpse of him with a splash of scarlet down his +face before they threw him over. + +Upon that, a new emotion seized the crowd--a panic born of the +consciousness of limits to police indifference. The mass swayed and +broke away from where the figure had fallen. There were plenty of +policemen, now that the need for their intervention was past. + +Napier shouted to them for an ambulance, as he ran forward. Of the faces +bent over the figure lying limp at the foot of the platform, one was +lifted--Nan Ellis's. + +"Wait!" Napier called to one of the policemen. "Get that lady out of +this, will you?" + +But the lady would come when she could take "him" along. "A taxi, +please." + +Some one had given her a large-sized pocket-handkerchief. She made a +bandage and tied it round the bleeding head. Some one else fetched a cab +for the lady. And the ambulance would be there in a minute. + +"Oh, he'll hate the ambulance! Help me to get him to the cab!" she +besought. + +His eyelids opened, and he moaned a little as, between Napier and one of +the policemen, Julian was carried through the alley which had been +opened in the crowd. As the limp figure was borne past, they muttered +and jeered. + +"Oh, _hush_!" cried a voice. "Isn't it enough to have nearly killed +him?" Nan's question cut its way through the muttering and hate; it +startled the people into momentary silence. But when the little +procession had gained the cab and were driving off, the anger of the +disintegrated mob broke out afresh. The air was filled with cries, and +for several hundred yards men and boys ran along by the taxi, shouting +insult and imprecation through the window. + +Napier looked out. Not one of those foul-mouthed pursuers wore khaki or +sailor's blue. + +That was something. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Late that night Gavan left a note in Berkeley Street, to be given to +Lady Grant in the morning. He told her that he had got a doctor and a +nurse, and "Julian has come off better than I could have believed." + +Before ten o'clock the next day Lady Grant appeared at her son's new +lodging, with the avowed intention of taking him home and seeing that he +was properly attended to. Julian, in a fever and many bandages, flatly +refused to be moved. There was a grievous scene. + +In the midst of it, in walked Miss Ellis. The same evening, comfortably +established in his old Berkeley Street bedroom, Julian in a few faint +sentences put Napier in possession of the issue of that encounter of the +morning. + +"Nan turned against me. She and my mother together are too many for me." + +In those next days Gavan ran in whenever he had a quarter of an hour, to +find a Julian very weak, yet in bewildering good spirits, visited daily +by Nan, and even, for the term of the exigency, received back into his +mother's favor. + +"Do they meet, those two?" Arthur asked. + +"My mother and Nan? Rather. They get along like a house afire." + +If Napier had doubted that before, he doubted no longer after a little +talk down in the drawing-room with Lady Grant on a certain gloomy +evening toward Christmas. Whispers had begun to be heard in privileged +circles of British shell shortage at the Front. The Germans had shells +to spare. They had been bombarding Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby; +five hundred casualties, the papers said. + +In spite of all the evil news, Julian was better. You could read that in +his mother's face. + +"I believe he'll be able to go over to America early in the new year," +she said. + +"To America!" Napier repeated, slightly dazed. + +"It would be everything to have him out of England till the war is +over." Julian's mother had broached the idea to Miss Nan. "I've had my +eye on that young woman. It's true she takes Julian's mad ideas for the +law and the prophets, but so a wife should. Julian might do worse, don't +you agree?" + +"Then--they're engaged!" was all that Napier could bring out. + +"Not properly engaged, I gather. But when was Julian properly anything? +The girl's no fool. She has naturally thought we shouldn't like it, so I +took occasion to say a word to her. She looked rather confused," said +the lady reflectively. "She _must_ have been confused, for what do you +think she said? That I had misunderstood. That she had never said she +would marry Julian. I told her he was an odd creature, but I was sure +that was what he wanted. 'And I can't be wrong in thinking you care for +him,' I said. And then she burst out with: 'How can I _help_ caring +about anybody with such a perfectly beautiful nature as Julian!' Wasn't +that American?" Lady Grant smiled. "I told her I would make Sir James +see it as I did, and that it would all come right." + +Julian's way of helping it all to "come right" was to employ his +convalescence in carrying on the propaganda from his sick bed with +unabated ardor; or, rather, an ardor increased by the excitement of its +transmission largely through Nan Ellis. + +That name of "Messenger" which Napier had secretly given her recurred to +him again and again. Messenger, indeed! carrying contraband, not to say +high explosive, to and from the sober precincts of Berkeley Street! + +The worst of it was that Nan showed no sign of revolt against being made +the agent of this traffic. The cold truth was that she liked it. That +was the heart-breaking thing about the whole sorry business. She would +come back from private talks with Julian's revolutionary friends, from +semi-public meetings, electric with excitement, brimming with her news. +Julian's eagerness to hear and hers to tell did not always await the +more private hour. + +Nan's air of tumbling it all out, equally without selective care and +without consciousness of offense, did much to ease the situation between +Julian and his mother. Their relationship had been too embittered to +allow them any more to discuss these things. And here was some one +wholly forgetting, if she had ever heard, that constraint-breeding, +melancholy fact; some one who pronounced the words abhorred in an even, +every-day voice, smiled the while, and sat at her ease. Too newly Julian +had skirted death for his mother not to make shift to endure that which +first brought back the hues and lights of life to the corpse-white +face. + +Lady Grant did, to be sure, tighten her lips and stiffen her back in +face of some of the talk that went on across her son's paper-strewn +bed-table. + +During one of Napier's visits, he had seen her rise and leave the room. +When she came back, she found Julian laughing as he hadn't for many a +day. Ultimately Lady Grant was able to confront the familiar mention of +persons ostracized and implications outrageous with that patience women +know how to draw upon in dealing with their sick. + +Sometimes the messenger didn't spare the mixed audience in Berkeley +Street a graver, more passionate mood. + +"Mr. Lazenby was wonderful, talking about the awful casualty lists, and +the way sheer hate is shriveling up men's minds. I do wish you'd heard, +Julian, what he said about America and what President Wilson might do +for peace." + +"By minding his own affairs and not interfering with our blockade? Yes." +For once Lady Grant and her enemies were in accord. + +"I told them," Nan went on, smiling at Julian, "that you said the +President had the greatest opportunity in all history. 'Eggs-actly!'" +she lifted and brought down her slim arm in accurate reproduction of +Lazenby's sledgehammer gesture: "'The President of the United States is +the man to go for!' They had cheered that. '--The man with a more +absolute power and a greater range of action that any ruler on the earth +to-day!'" + +"Just so!" Lady Grant's deep voice came down more quietly but hardly +less heavy than Lazenby's hammer, "--Raging socialists building all +their hopes on the irresponsible Despot." + +"Oh.... Despots!" Miss Nan appeared to pass these gentlemen in mental +review. "Do you know, they've done something more outrageous than ever?" + +Now we'll have it, Gavan thought to himself. He had been conscious on +this particular evening of an undercurrent of emotion in the smooth +stream of the girl's talk--a peculiar shining in her eyes, that +perplexed him. It certainly wasn't happiness. She was for once keeping +back something. + +"I told you," she said suddenly to Julian, with that new intimacy which +seemed to clear the room of other occupants, "I told you Mr. Oswin +Norfolk's book was practically finished. Yes. Well, the authorities +aren't going to let it be published." + +"_What!_" Julian very nearly leaped out of bed. "Suppress the greatest +contribution to sane thinking since 'Progress and Poverty'? To dare to +ban the 'Philosophy of Force' and pretend we are fighting for liberty!" + +"You ought not to have told him," Lady Grant reproached the girl. + +Julian caught his mother up. "Not tell me? Of course she had to tell me. +She knows if she didn't bring me the news here, I'd have to go where I +could depend on getting it." + +His mother exchanged looks with Gavan. + +"I told them what _I'd_ do." Nan said it with that little catch of +excitement in her voice. "I'd get Mr. Oswin Norfolk's book over to +America. They wouldn't be afraid to publish it over there." + +"Why should they? The _Americans_ aren't standing in the breach," said +Lady Grant, with heightened color. + +Nan looked away. Her mouth quivered a little. It was clear that she was +reminding herself, Julian's mother! + +"America! The very thing!" In the baggy dressing-gown Julian had twisted +the upper part of his thin body sidewise, leaning towards the messenger. + +"The trouble is," she began in a lower voice, and then hesitated. + +"What's the matter?" His impatience made him irritable. "You aren't so +silly as to suppose we can't say what we like before Gavan and my +mother?" + +"No, oh, no," she answered with a haste that convicted her. "I was just +going to tell you Mr. Norfolk seems to think"--and for all Julian's +assurance and her own acceptance of it, her voice sank--"the mails +aren't safe." + +"Not safe?" + +She shook her head. + +"Not any more. Mr. Norfolk says there's a--a supervision already." + +"What?" + +"Oh, not openly." + +"A secret censorship! Hah! Hear that?" he challenged his friend. "That's +what your policy's come to!" + +"What makes Norfolk think--" Gavan began at his calmest. + +"He doesn't think. He knows." There was a little pause. "Things don't +get through. And the things that don't get through, they're always, he +says, things of a certain kind." She broke the strain of the next few +moments' silence. "I said if they didn't trust the mails why shouldn't +Mr. Norfolk take his book over along with your 'League of Nations +Manifesto' that they're all so wanting to get into President Wilson's +hands. They asked me what I thought the inspectors would be doing while +Mr. Norfolk was walking about with contraband literature under his arm. +Did you ever hear such an excuse? I said: 'Do you think the inspectors +would stop you? Well, the inspectors wouldn't stop _me_!' Yes," she +added in a slightly offended tone, "they laughed, too. I didn't mind +that so much as to see them accepting the--interference, and just +sitting there. Talking! It made me wild. 'Do you really _want_ to get +that into the President's hands?' I asked them. 'Very well. You give it +to me.'" + +"You'd take it!" The involuntary exclamation slipped over Gavan's lips. + +Julian hadn't needed to ask. + +"You darling!" He held out his hand. + +"Not at all," said Miss Nan, with flushed dignity. "And, anyhow, Mr. +Norfolk won't trust me with his precious book. 'Let me take Mr. Grant's +"Manifesto," then,' I said. But they seemed to think the 'Manifesto' was +still more what they called 'inflammable material at this juncture.' 'It +would be better for you to be found with a bomb in your trunk,' they +said." + +"They are bound to consider the question of personal risk," said Arthur, +seriously. + +"_What_ risk? Nobody can tell me that. I'm an American. The British +Government hasn't any right to tell me what I may carry to my own +country. Besides, they wouldn't find it. And suppose they did, the +English couldn't shoot me. I told them this afternoon, '_I'm_ not bound +by your horrid war regulations.' But no," she said lugubriously through +the others' smiling, "they won't send me. Everybody's afraid." + +"Except you and me, Nan." Julian held out a hand again, his eyes shining +in his moved face. "It's a great bond." + +Gavan recognized the fact now, and all its implications, that Julian, +with his pale halo of martyrdom, was able to draw closer to the girl +than anybody else on her idealist side. Politics? She wasn't thinking +about the future of governments and the stamp to be set on civilization, +Napier told himself. She was thinking that bayonet work was cruel and +revolting. She was prepared to let the great ideals be bayonetted like +the babies of the Belgian stories, rather than let the war go on! + +The last time Gavan was ever to see those two together was one evening +toward the end of January, about half-past six. Julian's convalescence, +not so rapid as his mother expected, was steadily progressing. The +newsboys, at that period still vocal in London streets, were shouting: +"Zepp raid! Bombs dropped on King's Lynn!" as Gavan was admitted at the +Grants' door. Nan was coming downstairs. + +"And where are you off to this time?" He led her into Sir James's +library. "I suppose I shall hear of you on the Nelson plinth next, being +pelted." + +She seemed not yet to have received that mandate. But again she was full +of America, what America was to do for the war-maddened world, America +and the labor parties everywhere. + +Away from that slavery to sickroom sensibilities, Gavan couldn't bear +it. With a vehemence foreign to him, he poured out his indictment +against a divided national policy, against the treason of weakening the +home front. He flayed the stop-the-war people as though a prince of the +peacemongers weren't lying in the room above. Their colossal ineptitude +in thinking they alone really want peace! They had sent deputations to +Sir William, who had just lost his second son! + +"Not Niel! Oh, Gavan, Niel!" + +"Yes, blown to atoms at Soissons." + +"Niel! Niel, too!" she cried. "If only they had been able to stop it in +time!" + +"Stop it! Stop men from going into a war like this! I'm not an idealist +myself,"--he couldn't, to save his life, keep bitterness out of his +voice--"but I do know there have been men who went into this war to +defend the weak and to right wrong. A good many of those men can't speak +for themselves any longer--" For a moment even Gavan couldn't speak for +them. He began again in a level voice, "In those casualty lists--nearly +every friend I had." + +"Not the greatest friend of all; not Julian." + +"Except Julian," he said dully, "our lot is practically wiped out. And +now the younger men, the boys, Niel and the rest. They go and they go." +He turned on her with a vehemence that cloaked his emotion. "I'm not +saying that all the men out there feel the same about the war, but they +fight on, some of them because--other men have died and mustn't have +died in vain. The dead are the best recruiters. It's the dead call the +loudest, 'Come, join up!'" + +The tears stood in her eyes, but she shook her head. + +"The dead can't speak for themselves. I wish they could. +Soldiers--people who've been in it--aren't half so hot for going on with +the struggle as a civilian like you." + +"I'm _not_ a civilian. I'm gazetted to the Scottish Borderers. This is +the last time I'll see you." + +"Oh, Gavan!" She held up her shaking hands. + +He longed to beg her forgiveness, to say he hadn't meant in the very +least to tell her like that; but all he could do was to explain, "The +last, I mean, till I get my first leave," he ended in his most casual +voice. + +"Oh, Gavan!" she repeated. And then she turned abruptly and went out of +the room. Left him standing there. Not even good-by. + + * * * * * + +It had been hard enough for Gavan to arrange it even before that awful +news about Niel. + +"You aren't fit," Sir William had stormed. When he calmed down a little, +he went and had another talk with the doctor. No medical man who knew +his business would pass Mr. Napier, Sir William was told; but the need +for officers was great. Mr. Napier would have his way. In the final +issue Sir William had his. + +The very same evening of the interview with Nan this new thing had been +sprung on Napier. + +Something, Sir William said, that Gavan could do for the country that +the country needed more than it needed another amateur officer at the +Front. Gavan was to go to America by the first ship on a secret mission. + +The newly commissioned officer protested with all his might. He had no +experience of missions, secret or otherwise; he had no experience of +America. Nevertheless, there were others in high places who agreed with +Sir William. In the scarcity of suitable men at that particular crisis, +and in view of the confidence felt in Napier by the authorities, they +were in agreement as to the advisability of despatching him, in addition +to the practical expert from the Admiralty already over there, to pay a +private visit to America, in the course of which certain government +contracts for munitions of war were to be effected--_quietly_, without +rousing pro-German opposition. + +The exigency was put to Napier in a way difficult to meet. He had +himself seen regiments of men in training for months in civilian +clothes, and who had never held a firearm in their hands. He had seen an +entire camp drilling with dummy rifles. He was aware of the lack even of +the plants necessary to turn out rifles to equip a quarter of the +recruits called for. And now Sir William told him the secret of the +shortage of ammunition for British troops already at the Front. + +"We've sent our men out there to face the German guns, and our men +_can't reply_! We've got to have guns and shells and rifles ... +everything. We've got to get them from America. _You've_ got to get them +from America; you and Jameson." + +Sir William quoted yet another reason besides the main ones given, for +Gavan Napier's being the man to go; his personal friendship with one of +the chief of that group called "Steel Kings" overseas. + +As usual in the case of projects with which William McIntyre had most to +do, this one was quickly shaped and smartly carried through. Time was +the essence of Napier's mission to America, not only in view of the +needs of our men in France, but in order that neither the other neutral +governments nor the Central empires should know of the attempt to tide +over the interval of scarcity before the munition plants of Great +Britain should be established and the output secure. + +The night before he left England, Napier received his final sailing +orders during a tete-a-tete dinner with Sir William at the club. The +privacy of those last minutes was broken in upon by Tommy Durrant, +hot-foot on Sir William's traces. Tommy was just back from the Front. +Something ought to be done, according to Tommy, to lessen the +ineffectiveness of the inspectors of refugees crossing over to England. +He retailed the story then going the rounds about a man who spoke +Walloon all right, arm bandaged, sling--all that sort of thing. Somebody +on the boat didn't like the look of him, and had the wit to ask to see +his wound. He was very sensitive about showing his wound. It was not +unnatural, "doctor's orders," and that kind of thing. An R. A. M. C. man +got the landing authorities to insist. Fearful shindy! Fella's arm as +sound as Tommy's own. Didn't Sir William believe it? Very well, then. +Not five hours ago, as Tommy was waiting to get through the barrier on +this side, he had noticed a Belgian nun. He'd seen lots of nuns. Why +should he have noticed this one? Couldn't make out till she turned her +head with a backward look just as she disappeared. "And it was that +woman who used to be at your house, Sir William; the governess." + +Napier's heart failed him for one sick moment. To be leaving England at +the very moment of Greta von Schwarzenberg's return! Tommy was asking +Sir William why "a lady _like that_" should be coming back here in +disguise. Surely there was something very fishy about it. + +"Well, you say you've reported to Scotland Yard. Let them deal with it!" +Sir William rattled his seals impatiently. + +Poor Tommy was having no success at all with his news. It was plain that +Sir William was more annoyed at being made a participant than at the +fact itself. Napier couldn't refrain from warning him. + +"She'll be trying to get into communication with Miss Ellis--with +Madge." + +Tommy, more considerate, soothed Sir William. + +"She won't risk that, whatever's the explanation of her slinking back. +She'll lay low for a while, anyway." Tommy registered his conviction, +"She saw I'd recognized her, and didn't love me for it." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +A good part of that last night in London, Napier spent in writing Nan a +full account of the results of Singleton's visit to Lamborough. He wound +up by warning her that Greta was in London, disguised as a Belgian +refugee. Moreover, Scotland Yard would have full and accurate knowledge +of those with whom the woman held any, even the slightest and most +innocent, communication. + +He sealed the letter and left it in the trusty keeping of his servant. +The packet was not to go out of Day's hands except to be placed in those +of Miss Ellis. + +Napier's secret was well kept. His own family had so little idea of his +change of plan that until he had cabled them from New York, they +supposed him to have vanished, in the now familiar way, into the B. E. +F. + +Before ever the Atlantic liner left the docks, Napier's eyes, or rather, +his ears, in the first instance, began to open. What they took in was +the fact of the singular pervasiveness of the German tongue. On +examining the speakers, they were seen to be men young or youngish and +certainly _Kriegsfaehig_. The stamp that the German system sets on the +person who has been trained to military command differentiated certain +of these foreign-speaking passengers from the ordinary reservist. There +were at least four Germans of good military rank on board, no doubt +calling themselves "Americans returning to their American homes." Here +was a chance to observe at short range one of the greatest difficulties +of those days: how was England to safeguard herself without wounding the +susceptibilities of a friendly, but officially neutral, nation? + +As he shouldered a way among his alien enemies, that new, involuntary +hatred of the Teuton accent may have played some part in the rapture +with which his ears greeted a voice not English, indeed, yet sounding +for him its special harmonies. + +He turned with a leap of the heart toward the voice that floated up from +the crowd pressing to the gangway, a voice that called out to a porter +something about a "green suit-case." Looking down from, the height of +the tall ship, for all his hungry eagerness, he couldn't see the face +that went with that voice, nothing but hats: men's soft felts and hard +bowlers; the feathers and ribbons of ladies' headgear. Then came a +moment when, among them all, a little cap of brown came slowly up on its +golden wings till it landed Nan Ellis on the deck. + +This latest manifestation of the cap of magic produced in Napier's mind +a medley of instinctive joy, an utter bewilderment, and that readiness +of acceptance, apparently without effort or cost, with which we greet +those strokes of fortune whose strangeness throws us back on the +essential mystery through which the most commonplace of us daily threads +his way. + +Her first words in another mouth would have been an intolerable irony: + +"So this is how you go to the Front!" He was glad of the quick flush +that rose to ask his pardon. + +"To accept the worst construction on my being here," he answered, +smiling, "I am not the only shuttle-cock." + +She evaded the explanation of her own presence with a speech that even +at the time struck Napier as being more odd than her apparition on board +the _Britannia_. + +"Forgive me for saying that. I know, wherever you are in these days, you +_are_ at the Front." + +It was something. It was undoubtedly too much, and yet it comforted. The +eager hope rose in him: she had come to know of Greta's return. Without +Napier's intervention, she had come to know of matters in that +connection which had made her flee. Hardly was the hope framed when it +was dashed. + +"I got tired of waiting to hear from Greta," she explained. Besides, she +had a feeling she couldn't go on. She'd written him that. To show him +she really had got off, the letter was to be posted from Queenstown. It +was in--Heavens! where _was_ the green suit-case? Seeing him had put it +out of her head. + +Oh, Napier would look for, he would find, the green suit-case! + +But, _no_, she dashed after him. "Certainly not," she faltered as she +caught him up, unless by any chance she shouldn't find it in her cabin. +With consternation in her face, she flew down the companionway. + +Serenity had returned when Napier met her a quarter of an hour later on +the way to the dining-saloon. + +"It's a wonder I knew you," he said, "in a different hat." + +"Can't wear the Mercury on board ship. But I won't have you mocking at +it." She stood with several letters in her hand. + +"Why mayn't I mock at a Mercury cap if I like?" He remembered he hadn't +waited till now to commit that indiscretion. + +"Because my Mercury cap is your responsibility." + +"My--" + +"You've forgotten already!" As they went down, she reminded him of that +time she appeared in the blue hat with Michaelmas daisies. "You +perfectly hated it." Yes, he remembered he hadn't liked it. And Julian +had quoted Herbert Spencer. Nobody was ever satisfied with hitting on +the right thing. If a person found a special kind of ink-pot that suited +him, or a milk-jug that would pour without spilling, or clothes that +were just right, "we were so certain to want a change that the same +thing wasn't made again," Miss Nan supplemented. "But my same-shaped hat +_has_ been made again and again, and you never noticed! _That's_ all I +get." + +It was only to himself that Napier said: "No! no! She got more--more +than was wise or well." + +"Did you find the green suit-case?" he asked, "and my letter?" + +"Oh, yes. But the letter was hardly worth showing." + +He claimed the sealed envelope and opened it on the spot. He read: + + Dear Gavan: + + This is to say good-by. Since my talk with you I haven't felt I + could go on staying here in England. So, as I have no news from + Germany and hear that my mother is in New York, I'm moving + heaven and earth to get off to-morrow in the only really good + sailing this month. I wish I need not think of you over there + in France, but I don't know how I can help that. + + Yours, + + NAN ELLIS. + + P.S.--Perhaps you wouldn't mind writing me. N. E. + +She gave a New York address. + +Only to himself he put the question, On what terms had she left Julian? +What lay behind the delight in the eyes that welcomed Napier? Ask? Not +he. He would try not so much as to wonder. Even if the shining of the +hours in front of them was no more than the fragile iridescence of a +bubble floating in the sun, the greater was the need not to touch such +beauty with too inquiring finger. + +They found their places in the haphazard way of the first luncheon, +before the seating is arranged. By ones and twos others came in, till +the table, at which Nan was the only woman, was full. The strangers at +her end seemed disposed to silence. Such words as fell audibly, though +English and addressed chiefly to the waiter, bore out the impression +given by the faces. Napier saw the steward about it afterward. There +were to be no Germans at his table as finally selected. He wished +afterward he had added, and no American actors. In which case Miss Nan +wouldn't have come up from dinner with Mr. Vivian Roxborough and walked +the deck at his side a good half-hour. If it were only for Julian's +sake, she couldn't be left to Mr. Vivian Roxborough. Napier made it his +business to avert the chance. + +That next day--forever and forever the sunshine and the sweetness of +those hours would leave something of their flavor and their light +behind. If only they could go on sailing, sailing, and never land! + +So Napier said to himself, as he hurried back on the second afternoon, +after a talk with the captain--a talk somewhat marred by a flickering +fear as to whether that actor might have appropriated the guardian +chair. No; one of those Germans! Napier's change of table had neither +prevented Nan from bowing to some of the men she had broken bread with +during that first meal on board, nor prevented chance conversation +(initiated by one or other of the Germans) upon that promising opening, +"You are American?" + +Even Nan knew that the handsome big man who stood by her now was an +officer. He may have been thirty-eight, and he was certainly in the pink +of condition. In the midst of whatever it was he had been saying, Napier +carried the lady off to the lower and less-frequented deck. + +"How they must laugh at the stupid English, those Germans!" he muttered, +as he strode along at her side. "Here we are, six months after the +declaration of war, and enemy aliens still going back and forth as +easily as in times of peace. Those that don't find their way back into +the German Army--" + +"How _can_ they!" + +"What's to prevent them? Anyway, those who don't take the popular +pleasure trip, New York to Genoa and so to Germany, can be trusted to +advance the German propaganda in the two Americas. But they won't find +traveling so easy after this." + +"Why? Who will prevent them?" Her questions had come quickly. + +"The British Government will prevent them--after the Intelligence +Department gets my report." He took out of his pocket a paper destined +to have an effect, the least part of which was to give Napier many a +sleepless night months after he had posted it. + +The first eyes to rest on the report after Napier's own, regarded it, as +he felt even at the time, with something more than disapproval. + +"Don't send that!" the girl urged. She added reasons in whose syllabling +Napier heard Julian's voice. Oh, he had well indoctrinated her! As +Napier listened, obviously unmoved, there came into Nan's earnestness a +note that gave him more uneasiness than her "opinions"--a note of +anxiety, a note of something very like panic. "You can't send that! +It--it might make _such_ trouble, not only--not to people you call your +enemies." She caught herself up. "As Julian says, 'The reactions from +that kind of tyranny--'" + +Napier said quietly he must accept the reactions. + +"But you _can't_!" she repeated. "It's the greatest mercy you've showed +it to me. Oh, Gavan, you don't want to make trouble between England and +America? You _will_ if you send in that report. I do _beg_ you--" + +Napier had seldom known more difficult moments than those that followed. +As she stood beside him on the saloon-deck near the companionway-door, +he glanced at the mail-box near the purser's window. Its open brass +mouth seemed to bray a warning: "If you don't post that letter now, you +never will." Napier stepped inside, and dropped the envelope through the +slit. + +Nan sat down on a folding-stool near the ship's railing. Napier went +back and stood silent by her for a moment. Then he said: + +"Give me what credit you can. I don't remember ever doing anything +harder than that." + +To his surprise, instead of reproaching him or punishing him with +silence or with tears, "What do you expect your Government will do?" she +said. + +"Oh, I don't know." He didn't try to keep the touch of impatience out of +his voice. "Regulate the traffic a little better, perhaps." He would +have left it at that but for a trifling occurrence. The head of the +German officer whom they had left a few minutes before on the upper deck +appeared just then out of an open port in the dining-saloon. For the +merest instant it was there, only to be withdrawn. And why, pray, +_shouldn't_ a man of any race look out at the sea from a public window? +even, come to that, glance out at a pretty girl? "People may as well +know," Napier said, "that the British Government has come to a point +where it will be obliged to exercise its censorship openly and +thoroughly instead of--" He frowned in the direction where the offending +head had been. "I doubt if these fellows on board here have even been +asked to make a declaration, let alone been examined." + +"Why _should_ they be examined?" The voice beside him rose indignant. +"On the open sea! bound for a neutral country!" + +He looked at her with different eyes. "The British port was the proper +place," he said. "And perhaps people _were_ examined. You know better +than I." + +"_I_ know?" She stared at him. + +"You know if they asked you to make a declaration before you came on +board." + +"_Me?_ A declaration! About what?" + +"As to what you are taking over." He heard his own stern voice as if it +were some one else's. + +"They asked," she said, with her chin up, "if I were taking over any +letters to people in America?" + +"And what did you say?" + +"That I _wasn't_ taking over any letters." Her note, like his, had grown +less and less patient. "Though I don't call it their business to ask an +American going to America if she--" + +"Do you mean," the interrogation went on, "they didn't look for +themselves?" + +"Look! Look where?" + +"Look through your luggage, your hand-bag, your 'green suit-case.'" + +"Certainly not." + +"Well, they ought. And I shall see that next time they do." + +Not anger only, and not only spirited revolt, appeared on the face +Napier loved. The something else he had been vaguely aware of showed +there clearer. He glanced sharply round and then bent over her. "What +would happen if they did their duty? What if they were to search you?" + +"To search me!" She stood up. + +"Sh!" He looked round again. + +"They can't!" she triumphed. "Not now." + +"Ah!" The emission of breath came as though forced out by a sudden +physical anguish. + +"What's the matter? What are you thinking?" she cried. + +"I'm thinking that I wish to God you'd go and get all that infernal +stuff of Julian's in the green suit-case and throw it overboard." + +"I haven't got any 'infernal stuff,'" she said, with the faint pink +rising in her cheeks. + +To Napier's further characterization of "the stuff," his bitter +denunciation of this using of English good faith to hamper, if not to +betray, England, the girl had her defense. Or, rather, she had Julian's +reinforced by the American's innocent belief, prior to 1917, that to the +citizens of that favored land no Old-World rules need apply, no +Old-World danger was a menace. "Americans don't recognize," was one of +her phrases. "We make our own rules. You are talking in the air. I am +not carrying over any letters." + +"Look me in the eyes, Nan, and say that you are not carrying something +that I would prevent from reaching America if I had the power." + +She got up and walked alone toward the stern of the ship. As she turned +to come back, Vivian Roxborough rose out of his chair. Before he reached +her side, a capped and aproned figure darted out of the narrow corridor, +near the smoking-room, and spoke to Miss Ellis. The girl and the +stewardess went below together. No sign of Nan for the rest of the +afternoon. + +At six o'clock Napier sent a note to her cabin. + + I hope you're not feeling out of sorts in any way. But if you + are, mayn't I see you a moment? + + Yours ever, + + G. N. + +The answer came back: + + Not out of sorts at all, thank you, + + Yours as always, + + N. E. + +When he didn't find her at the dinner-table,--she had been punctual +hitherto--Napier went back to the upper deck and waited for her near the +companionway. Ten minutes went by. She must, after all, have been below +somewhere, and was no doubt at dinner by now. He went back to the saloon +and looked in. She was not there. As he returned again to keep his watch +on the corridor leading from her cabin, the same stewardess who had +carried the girl off early in the afternoon came laboriously up from +lower regions, carrying a tray. + +"Oh--a--you are the one who is looking after Miss Ellis, aren't you?" + +"Yes. I'm taking in her dinner." + +"Oh, I see." But it wasn't true. He didn't see in the very least why he +should be punished in this way, a sulky way, moreover, and singularly +un-Nanlike, as he told himself. + +Just after the luncheon-bugle sounded the next day, Napier met the same +stewardess again. Again she came toiling up the companionway, +tray-laden. + +"You are taking that to Miss Ellis?" + +Yes, she was. + +"She is ill, then?" + +"No, she isn't ill. Just having her dinner in Number Twenty-four." + +"Twenty-four isn't Miss Ellis's number." + +"No, sir. It's the number of the lady who isn't feeling very well, +though she does eat well. I'll say that for her." The woman pursued her +way with the access of vigor that a dash of vindictiveness will +sometimes generate. + +He had not so much as a glimpse of Nan until evening. Going down to +dress, he met her coming out of the library with an armful of books. + +"Well, at last!" He tried to take the books. She backed away from him. + +"No, no, thank you. They're just nicely balanced." + +"Look here, what have I done?" + +"You've barred my way." She tried to pass. + +"It isn't like you to take a mortal offense and not say how or what +about." + +"I haven't--taken offense." She leaned against the wall, hugging the +books. + +"Then why do you stay in your cabin the whole blessed time?" + +"I haven't been in my cabin. I've been in--I've been looking after a +lady who wasn't well when she came on board and who is a very bad +sailor. So as I'm rather a good one--she _will_ wonder what has +become--" and before Napier could gather his wits, Nan was flying down +the corridor. + +The next day same program was continued, except that Napier hung much +about corridor and companionway, waiting in vain for even a glimpse of +the flying figure. While walking the deck he had located Number +Twenty-four, noting with surprise that a passenger who was ill, +especially a woman looked after by Nan, should keep her port closed in +fine weather. He had of course looked up the number on the table +diagram. Twenty-four was occupied by Mlle. La Farge, the devil take her! + +A restless, wearisome day. He knew it an ill preparation for sleep. He +turned up the light over his berth, the fierce, unshaded light, and read +till his eyeballs burned. He extinguished the horrible glare and lay in +the dark, turning and tossing, seeing in the renewal of his Nan-fever a +punishment for defective loyalty to his friends. Twelve o'clock came. Is +she asleep? As for him, he was wider awake than ever. + +One o'clock in the morning. It wasn't to be borne. The real trouble was +that instead of taking a proper amount of exercise, he'd hung about +waiting. What was the night, the morning, rather--what was it like? He +couldn't bring himself to turn on the fierce flood of light. He felt his +way to the port. Yes, a gibbous moon, rolling lopsidedly among the +cloud-rack over a corrugated-iron sea. Was it hot or cold away from the +stifling steam heat? He opened his port and breathed deep. He was not +the only sleepless passenger. Two heads showed dimly, two figures in +long ulsters leaning against the rail. + +Presently a voice: "Now a little more walking, and you'll feel better." + +Nan! Good Samaritanizing! She was supporting the shorter figure, her arm +round the thick waist. They started down the deck in the direction of +Napier's open port, but thought better of it. They turned and went the +other way in face of the wind. + +Napier pulled on some clothes and hurried out. When he got to the +other, the colder side, of the ship, there they were, going at a good +round pace for an indisposed person, pounding down the deck locked in +that embrace. + +Well, women were odd beings. Here was evidently some frantic new +friendship started. He drew back in the semi-darkness and leaned against +the wall, smoking. The two heads hatless, with motor-veils tied round +them, were close together. The invalid ceased speaking as they passed. + +Nan's voice was blurred, troubled. "There _must_ be some mistake--" the +rest was lost. + +As they turned to come back, the mild, intermittent shining of the +moon lit the two faces for a passing moment--lit one delicate-featured, +pale, eager; and the other, full, pink-cheeked, with heavy, handsome +outlines and prominent eyes. By all the gods, it was?--No, it +_couldn't_--Something worse than a headache must be the matter with +Napier when he could imagine so startling a likeness. + +"I don't know how to get any more," Nan was saying. + +"You can borr-_ch_-ow some," said the other in remembered accents. + +When the figures turned to come down again, the shorter of the two +halted suddenly. Napier had come out of the shadow and stood in such dim +light as there was, with his back against the ship's railing, waiting +for them. + +It was the invalid who first caught sight of him. She turned about, and +before one could much more than blink, she had wrenched open the weather +door and disappeared. + +Nan stood still for a bewildered instant, while Napier went forward. + +"So _that's_ why!" he said. "Very well, then, you've got to know!" +Leaning on the railing there beside her in the windy moonlight, he told +her what Singleton had found in Greta's room. + +Before he had gone far Napier was acutely aware of the girl's +stiffening; aware of a withdrawal, infinitesimal as expressed in the +body, a chasm as between their souls. He could feel that she was +thinking: "Gavan looked on! He allowed that baseness at Lamborough!" +That he should put a false construction upon what was found was the +least of his misdoing. + +"Oh, yes,"--she turned sharply away--"she told me you'd say that!" + +Was it anger or suppressed tears that clouded her voice? Napier didn't +know. + +"What Greta must have suffered those horrible last hours at the +McIntyres'! All to spare me, to save me the humiliation of knowing how +you could treat my friend! She knew what that would mean to me. We,--" +she gave him her eyes again--"we at home treated Greta like a princess. +And she deserved it." As Napier made no attempt to rebut that view, she +dropped her head, struggling an instant with some new enemy to +self-control. "Greta puts me, too, to shame. That longing to see me +again that made her risk coming back to England! Only to find that she +might do me an injury, might compromise me! Imagine Greta in a thick +veil, waiting about in the dusk to catch a glimpse--Saw me coming out of +the shipping office with Madge. And when she found I was sailing on this +boat, dropped _everything_ to come along! _Greta_ understands loyalty." +She fell back upon ground evidently prepared for her. "_Isn't_ it +'trying to undermine,' _isn't_ it 'poisoning the mind,' if you ask me to +put the worst construction on innocent things? Greta's diary! As she +says, if you'd read my diary to my mother, you'd have _me_ in the Tower. +Oh, she is fair and just! She's been saying to me only to-night, that +since I'll be going back there, perhaps living among them, I'm to +remember it's only to the Germans the English are perfectly horrible. +She was quite willing to leave me my illusions about you all till you +yourself tear them away." + +"Do you mind telling me how I've done that?" He tried to stem the +torrent. + +She steadied herself with an elbow on the railing. + +"Haven't you told me yourself about going through my friend's trunks +when she wasn't there? Oh, that--_that_, Gavan, was--" She turned +suddenly and buried her face in her arm. + +"Yes, it was a mistake." + +She lifted a wet face up to him in the moonlight. + +"The alternative," he said miserably, "would have been better. Instead +of the private one, a public examination, Greta Schwarzenberg in prison +instead of free--" + +"Then she is right!" Nan stood back, clear of the railing, facing him. +"You do want to be revenged." + +She stood there, with the wind catching at the ends of her chiffon veil, +blowing them back over her shoulder, for that instant before she, too, +fled from him through the weather door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The morning of arrival found every one in the natural state of +excitement induced by eight days' anticipation and three thousand miles +of progress toward a given goal. Napier's glimpse of Nan, hurrying out +of the breakfast-salon by an opposite door as he went in, showed +excitement in her, too. Notwithstanding all that had happened, he was +determined not to part from her on that note of last night. Anything, +the merest commonplace, rather than that, he told himself, unable to +strangle a larger hope. + +Not in vain he, in his turn, despatched breakfast in short order and +went above. There she was on the promenade-deck, her back to him, her +face to the faint, still far-off outline of her native land. + +In the raw chill of that February morning the prospect appeared anything +but welcoming to Napier. It was different for her. In the forefront of +her mind she was no doubt waving the Stars and Stripes. But, Napier +could have sworn, deep in her heart was the thought of him and a secret +planning of one of those "meetings in New York" she had spoken of in the +first days. She stood there lightly poised, a little wistful, more than +a little alluring. Another man, noting the empty deck, remembering that +other sea they had stood by, locked together, would have gone up to her +and put an arm about the waiting figure. The scene of pretty confusion +and tender yielding, the withdrawal, "Some one is sure to come!" and the +hurried arrangement to meet--he saw it all. He wondered afterward what +would have happened had he played his part. + +When she found him at her side with "Good morning," she turned sharply +as though to fly. It was all in the convention. + +"You must be very happy to-day," he said. + +"_Happy!_ Why should I be happy?" + +"Well, to be so near home." + +"Oh, home!" She lifted her shoulder slightly. "New York is less my home +than--" she stopped short. + +"Than England?" he said. + +"There's one thing, anyway," she said in her elusive way. "If I can't go +back for a good while, neither can you." + +He stared at her, a great hope contending with mystification. + +"Do I understand," he forced himself to answer lightly, "that you refuse +to let me return home without you?" + +Her cheeks showed sudden color. + +"The Germans refuse to let either of us go if what Greta has heard is +so." + +"And what has she heard?" + +"That soon after we sailed the Kaiser declared a blockade of England, an +Atlantic war zone." + +She saw that Napier had already had the wireless news before he asked: + +"How does that affect you and me?" + +"Even neutral ships aren't safe after to-morrow," she said, accepting +with the hypnotized docility shown by so many in those early days any +edict bearing the German stamp. "What I've been thinking is, you'll be +over here till the end of the war, so there'll be time to--to +understand--to get _some_ things straight, anyhow." She turned to answer +the good morning of one of the ship's officers. + +Napier always believed that the first real shock to Nan's faith in Greta +came as the passengers of the _Britannia_ were about to disembark an +hour later. Mr. Vivian Boxborough, very smart in new ultra-English +clothes, had been observed threading his way among the crowd on deck, +plainly in quest of Miss Ellis. No sooner had he caught sight of her +than he pressed forward, and no sooner was he near her than he stopped +short, his eyes intent on the lady at Miss Ellis's side. + +Greta had forborne to challenge curiosity by absolutely concealing her +features. But probably no one better than she understood the +serviceability for disguise of a heavily figured white-lace veil. + +Mr. Roxborough must have known her well to be able to say with such +assurance: "Why, Greta--" and then in the rebound from that betrayal of +too close acquaintanceship away to the other end of the scale: "I didn't +know you were on board, Mrs. Guedalla." + +Greta stared at him through the meshes of the elaborate pattern and said +with her grand air: "Some mistake, I think." + +Roxborough pinched his lips. "Oh, you don't remember me! Well, perhaps +you'll remember your husband. I'm rather expecting my manager to meet me +on the dock. Or perhaps it's _you_ Mr. Guedalla is waiting for," +Roxborough added with a peculiar smile. + +Greta put a hand through Nan's arm and drew her near the gangway. +Something must have been said for the girl turned her back with decision +upon her late admirer. But her face was more than disturbed; it was +shamed, frightened. A cut in public is a terrible thing to the innocent +mind. + +Napier stood close behind the pair, waiting for the excuse he felt that +Mrs. Guedalla would make for not going down with the crowd to confront +her husband. But the lady was too entirely mistress of herself for that. +Perhaps she counted on Mr. Guedalla's knowledge of the wisdom of not +interfering with his wife. Straight down the gangplank she walked, Nan +behind her, recovering herself enough to make little signals toward a +group--two ladies, a young man, and three children with flags--waving +and smiling at Nan Ellis, first from the end of the crowded pier, then +running along at the side, and now waiting finally at the bottom of the +gangway to fall upon the girl with their welcome. + +Napier had no difficulty in deciding which of them was her mother in +face of the fact that Mrs. Ellis looked more like an elder sister. Yes, +that must be a nice woman; but stupid, he decided, noting the +cordiality, after the first motion of surprise, with which Mrs. Ellis +received the lady in the baffling veil. She kissed Greta through the +lace. Bah! With Nan's address in his pocket, he could afford to leave +her and her party in the hands of a customs officer, opening trunks on +the pier. + +Indeed, he had little choice, he found himself appropriated by an +English friend and an American steel magnate--carried away into a world +about which all that he had heard had very little prepared him. + +His private as well as patriotic interest in the possibilities unfolded +did not prevent him from putting himself in touch with the British +Intelligence Department before he dined that first night on American +soil. + +The chief agent in New York was, or had been, as Napier knew, the +British partner in an American shipping house. That he had married an +American heiress, Napier also knew. He was the more surprised to find +Mr. Roderick Taylor installed _en garcon_ at an hotel. + +"My w-wife," said the long, fair young man with the strictly pomaded +hair, "is in P-Paris with her sister, who is or-organizing American +Hospital Relief. In any case,"--his smile seemed to accept Napier as one +to be treated frankly--"all sorts of coming and going is less marked in +a c-caravansary like this." The luxurious sitting room bore at that +moment, though it was not yet six o'clock, signs of the indicated +traffic. A bridge table not long abandoned, to judge by the glasses and +cigar ends, stood there. + +He had run across Stein, coming out from luncheon, said Mr. Taylor. Old +Viennese friend of his, Stein. Had him up along with O'Leary, the Sinn +Feiner, and a German-American dark horse, Bieber. "We are all dining at +Bieber's to-morrow," Mr. Taylor smiled as one who preserves a native +modesty in full view of triumph. It wasn't the smile he showed to his +experimental bridge parties. "Greta von S-S--" the slight, very slight +stammer gave a touch of unreadiness which perhaps prevented the extreme +competency of Mr. Roderick Taylor from being too marked. Napier noticed +later than the stammer was hardly discernible when the engaging young +man was off duty. + +"Yes, von Schwarzenberg." He helped Taylor over the barbed-wire of +Teutonic syllables. + +"_Know_ her?" Taylor could go on glibly enough. "Rather!" And what, he +asked, made Mr. Napier think the woman who had crossed with him as +Mademoiselle La Farge _was_-- + +Clearly Mr. Taylor, whether in obedience to his own judgment or to the +issue of some _mot d'ordre_, was disposed to take Napier at face-value; +but he was far from accepting Napier's facts on the sole ground of +Napier's belief in them. After the Schwarzenberg incident had been +probed and sifted, Mr. Taylor sat back in his chair, gently perplexed +and obviously perturbed. + +"It's not that we haven't been expecting her. The chief value of one of +our men is that he has hitherto been able to keep in touch with her. But +if she really has left the other side, he ought to have warned us." He +took up the receiver of his desk telephone, and then laid it down. "We +go warily with Miss von Schwarzenberg." He rose and opened a door at the +very moment that a frail, grizzled man entered the adjoining room from +the hall. "Oh, Macray, just a moment!" + +The man did not stop to take off either hat or coat. Middle-aged, +dyspeptic-looking, he came in, settling his black-rimmed pince-nez on an +insufficient nose. He took a reporter's note-book out of his pocket and +stood there, sour, hopeless, a mere sketch of a man in black and white. + +"Greta Schwarz is back," said Mr. Taylor. Without a pause and in the +same low voice he ran rapidly over the main facts in the story Napier +had told him. "Just set them to work," he wound up. "Quickest way to get +on her track--" he turned to Napier--"what's the American girl's +address?" Napier did not disguise his reluctance to produce that +particular information. + +"You understand," he repeated for the benefit of the pessimist with the +note-book, "this Miss Ellis is under the most complete misapprehension +about the woman." + +"Of course, of course," agreed Mr. Taylor. + +Macray impassively poised his pen. Napier gave the address. Macray set +down a grudging stroke or two, and then: "All New York knows where to +find Schwarzenberg," he said, dragging out the information as though to +talk increased his affliction, whatever it was. "Just heard. Been seeing +reporters all afternoon." + +"Who's been seeing reporters?" Taylor demanded. + +"Schwarz." + +"The deuce she has!" + +Macray felt in his pocket. He drew out an evening paper, damp from the +press, and folded to display: + + COLONIALISM IN AMERICA + + ENGLISH DICTATION + + IMPRESSIONS OF GERMAN-AMERICAN BACK FROM + BELLIGERENT COUNTRIES + +Napier stood at Mr. Taylor's side, and together they read how Miss von +Schwarzenberg had not been an hour on this dear American soil, before +she perceived with pain that, while Germany was fighting for freedom of +the seas, for human rights, America was forgetting she'd ever won hers. +After a genial reference in passing to the burning of Washington by the +British, the lady protested that history wasn't her strong point. Would +some one, therefore, kindly tell her who had given the seas to the +British? Upon the eloquent pause that seemed to have followed that +request, the lady illustrated the service Germany was rendering the +United States in protesting against English domination. It must be very +humiliating, the lady thought, for Americans to have their mail-bags +opened, their letters confiscated. "Of course some of the letters are +for Germany. Why not? Is England to tell you to whom you may write? +Isn't America a neutral? Or is that a pretense?" She gave cases of +bitter hardships, German parents, old, ill, dying, whom faithful sons +had long been accustomed to supply with remittances from America. In +suffering British interference, America, so Miss Greta told the +interviewer, had failed in dignity. Weakly, supinely, slavishly, America +was submitting to British insolence. + +Nothing in the interview occasioned Napier so much concern as the fact +that it was stated to have taken place at a named hotel, "where Miss von +Schwarzenberg is staying with old friends." + +Mr. Taylor laughed a trifle ruefully as he threw down the sticky paper +and applied a pocket-handkerchief to his long, white fingers. "I like +America, he assured the newcomer, but there's no denying it's a queer +country and a queer people. Isn't it so, Macray?" + +Macray's only answer was a faint groan. He picked up his newspaper and +walked gloomily out. + +"The very strangest mixture," Taylor went on, "of shrewdness and +innocence. Take their attitude toward this woman. She impresses them +enormously." He disregarded Napier's "She impresses most people." "Over +here they take this Mrs. Guedalla, or Schwarz, or whatever her real name +is--they take her not only for a woman of education, but a woman +_wohlgeboren_. They accept her account of misuse of her name. An obscure +Western actress who, you are told, bears a certain dubious likeness to +the real Greta von Schwarzenberg had feloniously adopted that honorable +name. 'You know the stage way,' says Schwarzenberg. 'Tottie Tompkins +turns into Arabella Beauchamp.' The real Miss von Schwarzenberg has +naturally _never_ been on the stage. She is musical. All _gebildete_ +Germans are musical. And that fact had been her salvation, so she tells +these fatuous friends of hers over here. Being musical in the thorough +German way enabled her to hold out against her proud, despotic father. +When he tried to compel her to marry the dissolute Freiherr of vast +possessions, Miss Greta ran away with her governess. Oh, always the +scene is carefully set! And then, in order not to live on the governess, +Miss Greta took to teaching music. They swallow it all! They look upon +her as a patriot. A German patriot, of course; but still laboring +devotedly and legitimately for her native land." + +What made Taylor's dealings with her a delicate matter was the fact that +she had these powerful friends, Americans whose good faith and general +decency of conduct no reasonable being could doubt. She had kept herself +in close relations with these people even while she was abroad. His +wife discovered that in Paris. How did Schwarzenberg keep up these +useful relations? Through the one channel of organized participation in +the war then open to American sympathizers, _Relief_. + +"Lord! the jobs put through in the name of Relief!" Taylor exclaimed. + +On his second evening in New York Napier went with the Van Pelts, his +hosts, to hear "Lohengrin" at the Metropolitan. In a stage-box sat Miss +Greta, very handsome, in green, with a silver wreath on her fair hair. +The elderly lady beside her, according to the Van Pelts, was a +well-known "society leader" with a taste for philanthropy. She had +largely financed a certain branch of American relief work. That was her +husband just coming into the box. But the girl--the Van Pelts couldn't +make out the girl. Napier could. + +The next day, three tables away from him, at a men's luncheon given to +Napier at a hotel, Greta again, with a different party except for Nan. +Napier saw the girl's face brighten in that instant of catching sight of +him. He saw her half rise, and then, as Greta fixed her eyes on Nan's, +Napier saw the girl subside. From time to time she looked over +wistfully. In a general movement after luncheon, emptying and refilling +the great room, he was able to time his going out so that he might +snatch a word with her. + +"You haven't forgotten where I am?" she said hurriedly after they had +allowed new-comers to separate them a little from their respective +parties. + +No, he hadn't forgotten; but he had read that _she_--he nodded in +Greta's direction--was also at the same hotel. + +"And that keeps you away! _That's_ all you care!" + +"Do you want, then," he said, with that daring which the sense of being +safely lost in a crowd will lend--"do you _want_ me to care?" + +"No! At least I oughtn't to." Greta and her guests were waiting. "If I'd +known how to find you," Nan went on speaking deliberately, as though +making a declaration of rights, "I should have written you. I could let +you see part of a letter I've had from Julian. He tells news the papers +don't." + +Napier thanked her gravely and gave a private address. As he saw her +disappear with "that woman," he said to himself for the thousandth time, +If only he'd been allowed to tell Nan about that Gull Island villainy at +the time, she _couldn't_ have gone on making her loyalty a cloak for +their common enemy! + +The temptation to use his knowledge now, strove in him with an +instinctive as well as a reasoned shrinking. The Gull Island affair +couldn't, he argued, still be a secret of any state importance. But in +proportion as he cleared away that obstacle, the clearer yet another +stood forth. It was one of the evils of a most evil time that he, Gavan +Napier, of all men, had been forced to play a leading part in the +violent end of a man with whom he and this gentle, sensitive girl had +broken bread! Napier caught again that animal-like gleam of bared teeth +as Carl Pforzheim writhed across the table for his pistol, saw again the +gush of scarlet after the figure turned, met the knife, and fell back +against the wall. Let all that horror be hidden in the island earth and +in oblivion. If Nan knew, never, never could it be forgotten. + +The "news" in the letter she sent from Julian, was all of the gathering +strength of the peace movement and the glorious part in it which America +was destined to play. President Wilson, "the man with more power and a +greater range of action than any ruler on the earth to-day"--President +Wilson was the hope of the world. The rest of the page had been torn +off. Nan was learning discretion, poor child! + +In the intervals of business conclaves in the city, trips to Pittsburgh +and elsewhere, Napier continued to cultivate Mr. Roderick Taylor despite +that gentleman's refusal to lunch out, or to dine out. Not with Mr. +Napier! Taylor was never seen in the company he most liked, as he said +in his pleasant way. But there were private smokes and talks during +which many things that had been mysteries to Napier became clear. Those +were the days when Taylor and his agents were almost daily unearthing +evidences of the underground activity of the pro-German propagandist. +Among these moles of international mischief Taylor's weasels came upon +Schwarzenberg's traces only to lose them. "Suspects of more public +weight and interest, particularly men, were far more easily dealt with. +These border-line women were the devil." + +Never in all that time was Napier wholly free from a dread of hearing +the name of Ellis in connection with Schwarzenberg; for always in his +mind the figure of the winged messenger followed the devious ways of the +German, followed like her shadow. The girl he loved was lavishing faith +and service, as well as financing this enemy of England. The thought was +an anguish to him. + +Nothing of all this to Taylor. The sole reference to the chief ground of +Napier's own interest in the situation was a carelessly expressed +opinion, "Schwarzenberg must be making a considerable hole in the Ellis +pockets." + +But, no. According to the omniscient Taylor, Schwarzenberg's spendings +were on a scale quite outside the Ellis range. Taylor half closed his +whitish eyelashes and regarded the end of his cigar. "I am, I believe, +on the track of Schwarzenberg's new resources." + +That telephone again! It was always ringing in here when Macray was out. +Taylor listened, laughed, and made an appointment. + +An Italian, he explained, a Mr. Luigi Montani, over here with his +family. He had taken from some friends of Taylor's a furnished house in +Washington. All arranged in twenty-four hours. Not a syllable in the +press. + +"He's just been telling me that when his servants, Italians, went +downstairs the first morning, they couldn't open the front door for the +mass of pro-German literature shoved through the letter-box overnight." + +The incident set Taylor talking about "the slender thread" on which may +hang "the everlasting things" in international relationships. He talked +of America with, as Napier thought, an understanding given to few +foreigners. You couldn't shake Taylor's faith in America. "But her +ignorance of one entire hemisphere!" + +Was it greater, Napier asked, than Old-World ignorance of the new? + +No, no. Lack of mutual understanding was the common danger. To increase +it was the German trump-card. + +"People talk of America's largely unconscious power to wreck the world's +best interests. She _won't_!" he cried with a passion that seemed alien +to his nature; "but if there's even a danger of it, it is because of +innocent susceptibilities which the underground people, Schwarzenberg +and her crew, are rubbing raw." And there was another thing. "If they +should 'get at' Wilson, we'd be in a bad way." + +"The whole world would be in a bad way," said Napier, with a dizzying +sense of the issues at stake. + +"Yes, the whole world," Taylor agreed. And on his face, too, was a +deeper gravity. + +"I heard something last night"--Napier sat up suddenly--"that made me +furious. I denied it. I want to hear you deny it. Fellow from Washington +told us the President has given up receiving the British Ambassador." + +"It's true." + +"My God! then Bernstorff _has_ got him!" + +"Not at all. It's true Wilson's given up seeing the British ambassador, +and it's true he's given up seeing the German ambassador. Oh, a long +head, Wilson's! He corresponds with the accredited official +representatives, and he sees the unofficial, the people he can learn +from and the people he can indoctrinate. You'll be dealing with him less +advantageously because of your mission, even though it's private. +But"--Taylor got up to find a match. He paused to lay a hand on Napier's +shoulder--"see Wilson soon." + +It was already arranged, Taylor was told. + +"Well, don't talk only munitions." Nobody better than the President, +according to Taylor, knew that the old diplomacy was doomed. "This is +the hour of the unofficial envoy." + +In Washington, four days later, Napier had cause to remember that +dictum. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Napier arrived at the White House some minutes before the time set for +his interview. Hardly had he embarked upon a little kill-time tour +through the public rooms when he heard hurrying steps behind him, and +turned to confront Nan Ellis. + +Her greeting was the strangest, considering all things. + +"How do you do? I wanted to know--oh, _have_ you seen Greta?" + +No, he hadn't, he could not forbear adding, Why should he? + +"She was to meet me here." The girl turned and scanned the corridor, but +in an excited, absent-mindedness as though her thoughts couldn't pretend +to follow her eyes. "I expect they won't let her go. Her own Embassy is +immensely polite to Greta. I never knew she had so many grand +acquaintances." She broke off, and then added breathlessly, "What are +you doing here?" + +"Waiting to see--certain people. I don't need to ask what you are here +for," he added. + +Her eyelids winked as though he had flicked something in her face. +"Oh,"--she considered a second,--"I suppose you do know more or less, +since Julian _made_ me talk before you. Do you know what I think?" + +"I'd rather like to." + +"Well, you shall. I think men are the indiscreetest people on the +earth." And then, with that same suppressed excitement, she added, "All +except one." + +He made a movement toward a sofa--a movement she misinterpreted. + +"O Gavan, _don't_ go in just yet! He's got cart-loads of people to talk +to, and I haven't anybody. You see, it must be somebody that as good as +knows already. There _isn't_ any one but you, is there? Of course, what +I came for was to see the President. Every good American wants to see +the President. So I done it--" she laughed as she threw up her +head--"like Huck Finn." + +"Not, I gather, with the _hoi polloi_?" + +"The what?" But she didn't stop. "Oh, the trouble I had! I wrote and I +wrote. I might just as well have been in an effete monarchy trying to +approach the throne on my hands and knees. It made me mad, I can tell +you. I said so. Told Senator Harned so. He's a friend of my mother's. +But Senator Harned wanted me to give _him_ the papers. Imagine!" + +"Julian's manifesto?" + +"Everything. As if I would! I've come all the way from Europe for a +personal interview, and a personal interview I've got to have, or--well, +something would have to be done." She wagged her head. + +"I see. Something with boiling oil in it." + +"Oh, they came to their senses at last, this very morning." She shone in +the refulgence of the late-risen sun. "But do you know, up to the very +last minute I had to be as firm as the Washington monument. He sent a +Private Secretary to see me. And the Private Secretary tried to make me +'abandon the matter.' Called it 'the matter'! I denied that 'matter' was +the main object. I must see the President. I was an American. Hadn't +every American the right to see the President? Every American had the +right to wring his poor hand in the presence of hundreds of other +Americans. 'Very well,' I said, 'if I mayn't see him, I'll tell Senator +Harned that I applied and sent in his letter, and waited for days, and +was turned away at last. + +"He asked me to wait a minute--the Private Secretary did. So I 'done it' +again. After a while another man came and spoke to me, a gloomy man with +a face like a clergyman who's got a crime on his soul, and _he_ took me +into the Presence." She was only half laughing. "The Presence and I +said, 'How do you do.' I was almost too excited to look at him properly, +now that I'd got him. But, O Gavan, he _is_, he really is!" + +"H'm," replied Gavan. + +"Wait till you see! He asked me why I'd come. Melancholy man still hung +about. 'I should like to speak to you alone,' I said. Do you think he +would? No. As much a 'fraid-cat as any king. But he looked at the +melancholy man, and melancholy man went and looked out of the window. It +was really as good as having him out of the room if I lowered my voice. +Then I told him. I gave him Julian's Manifesto and the rest. Yes, I had +them all in the green suit-case." She laughed triumphantly. + +"Well, I wouldn't advise you to carry such merchandise again." + +"I sha'n't," she agreed, "not in any such way as that. Babyish, I call +it. But it was all right _this_ time. I sat and watched him while he +read Julian's Manifesto. He read it twice. It took hold of him. I could +see that. Then I found him looking at me through his glasses. + +"'What do your friends want me to do?' + +"'To save civilization,' I said." + +Napier could see her "doing Julian" for the President. + +"I was awfully excited, but I remembered some more. He listened. He +listens well. He makes you do your best. I felt encouraged. I made a +case. Then I told him--oh, you won't like it, but I told him that Julian +and the rest had far more backing in England than the newspapers gave +the smallest inkling of. I told about the kind of men who were opposing +the loss of liberty in the fight for liberty. + +"'It is a menace before every country,' he said, in a discontented sort +of way. He seemed not to want to think about it. I could see he was +tired of considering me as a messenger any longer. I felt in the +queerest way my best strength, my _value_, all going when I found him +beginning to look at me as just a girl. He asked me questions that +hadn't a thing to do with the great business. They were kind questions; +oh, yes, kind, and as if he were really interested. He gave me a +feeling, too, that he'd make everything all right. He made me feel very +small and insignificant myself, but mighty proud of America." + +"He seems to have taken your measure very accurately." + +"What do you mean by that?" she asked, up in arms. + +"Oh, we've been told he knows how to deal with women. He can manage even +the Suffragettes." + +"Now you are a little spiteful. I know. You are jealous because you +haven't got a President. _You've_ only got King George." + +"I've come to be grateful for George," said Napier, fervently. + +"That may be, but nobody can call him exciting." + +Napier assured her that was the precise ground of his gratitude. + +The assurance went unheeded. She was still simmering with the excitement +of her interview. + +"Now the President _is_ exciting. Perfectly wonderful, _I_ call him. And +perfectly splendid about peace, though he _did_ say"--the little pucker +gathered between her brows--"he _did_ say we might have to fight for it. +I forgot to ask him what he meant by that. I shall be dying to hear what +you think about him. Couldn't we"--she hesitated, and then as Napier did +not make the hoped-for suggestion she made it herself--"couldn't we +meet?" + +"Nothing I 'd like better--if you're not with--if you're here with your +mother." + +No, her mother was still in New York with the children. That was one +reason Nan was having to go back. For Mrs. Ellis was leaving on Saturday +for California. "Father needs her, and she says I don't, now I have +Greta." + +"I see; you have Greta." + +"Greta is dining out to-night." She scanned his face with an expression +which, in the retrospect, comforted him even more than to remember her +delight at the arrangement finally made. He was to call for her. "Not +later than half-past seven," because she had the packing to do before +bed--time. Yes, they were going to New York by the early train. Greta +had to be in New York to-morrow night for a meeting. + +"Hallet Newcomb's, I suppose?" + +Nan opened her eyes. + +"How odd you should guess! But _isn't_ it fair-minded for her to go to a +pro-Ally lecture by an Englishman?" + +He smiled faintly as he hurried back to the anteroom. + +On the way out, after his interview with the President, Napier could not +fail to see among the waiting crowd, composed chiefly of men, the very +striking figure of a yellow-haired woman in deep conversation with a +certain senator much at the moment in the public eye. But Miss von +Schwarzenberg did not leave Mr. Napier's recognition to chance. + +"Oh, here you are!" She turned her back on the important person and +joined Napier with as much effrontery as though the meeting were what +she so successfully gave the impression it was, a matter mutually +arranged. In face of the absence on his part of the least response, she +walked on at his side. "I'm the only one here in all this throng," she +said in a confidential tone, "who isn't waiting to see the President." + +"That's a lie!" he said to himself as he stalked on. + +"_I'm_ waiting to see you. You must bear with me, I'm afraid," she said +in gentle accents. "It's about Nan. You haven't been to see her because +I'm there. Isn't that a pity?" + +Napier's apparent obliviousness of her presence vanished. He made no +effort to keep his indignation out of his face as he stopped abruptly to +say: "I decline to discuss that or anything else with you." He turned +his back on her with unmistakable finality, marched out into the +corridor, and so to the columned porch, with never a look behind. + +Napier hadn't often betrayed in public such heat of anger as the woman's +audacity had stirred in him. Much she cared! he told himself, still +tingling. She would shrug her handsome shoulders and return to her +senator. Presently she would be entering the sanctum Napier had just +left. To-morrow, in Hallett Newcomb's audience. Newcomb was one of those +Britons invited by American friends to come and correct transatlantic +misapprehension, and to present facts. Yet even such unorganized and +unofficial efforts, so slight in sum, were not suffered by the +thoroughgoing German propagandists to pass unchallenged or +unneutralized. In this connection Roderick Taylor had set down to Miss +Greta's credit an astute discovery. It was that, as some one put the +case, "pro-Ally Americans stayed away from these meetings in vast +numbers." Your pro-Ally American didn't need converting. He was occupied +in other ways. What he failed to recognize was that in the absence of a +sufficiently represented pro-Ally element in these audiences, Miss +Greta's confederates, judiciously disposed about the hall, could and +frequently did get up a powerful and "spontaneous" pro-German +demonstration. By this means certain meetings convened in the interests +of the Allies were turned into triumph for their enemies. + + * * * * * + +In front of Napier, at the office desk in Miss Ellis's hotel, stood a +man impressing on the clerk in an undertone the importance of a letter +he had brought. Could he have a receipt for it? Could he see the +bell-boy who was to deliver it? That business despatched, the clerk was +free to attend to Mr. Napier. Yes, he had been told a gentleman of that +name would call for Miss Ellis at 7:30. A bell-boy was waiting to take +Mr. Napier up. + +Side by side in the elevator they shot through story after story, to be +set down near the roof. With his thumb pressing the envelop to a little +brass tray, the bell-boy held in its place, address face-downward, the +much-sealed packet which had been the object of so much solicitude. At +the end of an interminable corridor the bell-boy tapped at a door. +Without waiting, he opened it and went in, returning almost at once with +the tray empty and the words, "This way, sir." + +The instant Napier was over the threshold, the door was shut behind him. +He stood facing Miss von Schwarzenberg. She had risen in the act of +laying the sealed packet on the table. In the midst of his surprise +Napier mentally registered the fact that he had never seen her in more +brilliant good looks. She was wearing over her dinner dress a superb fur +coat, thrown back to show her jeweled neck. + +"I am too early," Napier said. "I will wait downstairs." + +"You are not too early. It is Nan who is late. She won't be a minute." +Miss Greta pointed to a chair as Napier stood that instant rigid by the +door. "_Don't_," she cried softly--"don't be so hard upon me! Can't you +see that I'm not standing in your way any more?" + +"If that is so, you have your own reason for it." He turned and laid his +hand on the door-handle. These American fastenings! He turned the knob +fruitlessly. + +"Don't be so hard!" She had come toward him; her voice burred softly +over his shoulder. "When I'm trying to keep the straight road, _don't_ +force me down into the dark ways I abhor. Oh, listen, Gavan! Give me a +chance to explain!" + +"What's the matter with this door?" he demanded. + +"How do I know?" She pressed her lace handkerchief to her lips. + +He rattled the handle. + +"For God's sake! don't make a scene!" she cried in a harsh whisper. "Are +you so _bent_ on humiliating me!--both in private and in public as you +did this morning? Another woman wouldn't forgive you this morning. And +now, again, you want to humiliate me. Before hotel servants!" + +"You told that bell-boy to fasten the door." + +"Hush! For Nan's sake, anyway, don't make a scandal here!" + +Napier turned and looked at her. "Whatever your motive is you are +wasting time." + +"Not if you give me five minutes to explain. For you, too," she said +with meaning, "it won't be wasting time." + +His answer was to lift his hand and press the electric bell. + +"Ah,"--she stepped back,--"you are implacable! You--you don't care how +much you injure yourself if only you can injure me. Yes, you--!" She +broke off and turned away. For several moments she stood in that +attitude, giving him ample time to relent, her meek head bent, the +dazzling whiteness of her neck set off by the dark fur collar falling +away from her shoulders. The silence was broken by a stifled sob as she +carried her handkerchief to her lips and began to walk up and down. "I +can't disguise it from myself any longer. You"--she stopped in the +middle of the room--"you are the great disaster of my life." She waited. +She gave him time to disavow the role. "Very well"--she folded her arms +under the heavy fur--"very well," she repeated with a quiet intensity, +"I shall not go out of your life, either, without leaving my mark. _She_ +shall make it up to me! Yes, and she shall make it up to Julian Grant +for what he has given and lost. Be sure I shall see to that!" She came +forward with an air of great dignity, slipped some catch, and opened the +door. "Go!" she said in a penetrating voice. + +Out of the elevator that shot up in response to Napier's ring stepped +the same bell-boy. Napier's last look back showed the boy running down +the corridor, one of the long list of Greta's slaves. + +The elevator stopped at the second floor. Nan stood waiting. + +"Why," she exclaimed with boundless surprise, "where _have_ you come +from?" + +"There has been some mistake," Napier said. "I was taken to the wrong +floor." + +"I should think so! I was going down to see if my message had been +forgotten. Oh, come while I get my gloves." + +She disappeared through a sitting-room into a room beyond. Clearly Greta +had taken some trouble to achieve her brief tete-a-tete. + +As Nan came back, drawing on a long white glove, Napier was aware of +some one flying down the stairs, some one for whom express elevators ran +too slowly. A moment after the terrified face of the bell-boy appeared +at the open door. "Come! Come quick! She's dying!" + +"Who is dying? What has happened?" Nan demanded. + +"Miss von Schwarzenberg," he gasped. "Quick!" + +"But Miss von Schwarzenberg has gone out!" + +"No! no! She's upstairs. Come quick, or it will be too late." He rushed +to the elevator and rang. "It's coming!" he cried over his shoulder. + +"Is he crazy?" Nan asked, dazed, but following Napier. + +"It is probably some device to prevent your going out with me," he said +as the elevator stopped. + +Again the boy sped down that interminable upper corridor, the two +hurrying at his heels. + +"I'll wait for you," Napier said. They had come to the door which the +boy had not dared to open till he was supported by the presence of +others. He knocked now, opened, and stood back. + +Greta, in the arm-chair, the fur coat at her feet, had flung bare arms +out across the table and half sat, half lay there, moaning, with hidden +face. + +Nan rushed in and took the woman in her arms. Napier, full of disgust +for what he looked on as a piece of cheap theatricalism, was startled as +the face fell back against Nan's shoulder. That it should be so +blotched, so disfigured in that short time, bore witness to the violence +of whatever the feeling was that had torn and still was tearing the +woman. More than by any other sign, the fact that her heavy hair had +become loosened unbecomingly, grotesquely, brought Napier the +conviction that for once Greta von Schwarzenberg wasn't acting. The +great yellow mass of braids and curls had lurched over one ear, giving a +look more of drunkenness than grief to the convulsed face. That one +glimpse was enough. Napier turned away and paced the corridor for those +leaden-footed minutes till Nan ran out, looking blindly up and down. + +"Where are you? Oh, the most cruel, awful thing has happened! She has +just had his letter. Greta's lover--Count Ernst Pforzheim is dead." The +girl's eyes were full of tears. "Think of poor Greta running away up +here to hide herself so as not to interfere with my pleasure!" She +turned back to the room. + +"Have you heard--any details?" Napier detained her to ask. + +"Only that he died for the fatherland." + + * * * * * + +For all Taylor's professed anxiety to have Napier's report of his +interview with the President, he was late. He was very late. Macray had +looked in twice, the lines in his sallow face deepening as the +black-rimmed glasses verified the solitary figure in the room. + +Finally he came in and closed the door. He crossed the long room and +stood at Napier's side before he said with that brisk familiarity that +cost Napier something not to resent: "Remember that shady Bureau de +Change, Mr. Taylor told you about?" As Napier did not instantly respond, +Macray went on in his gloomy telegraphese, "Suspicious boom since +Schwarz's reappearance." + +Oh, yes, Napier remembered _that_. + +"Hahn--fellow we've had investigating--been waiting for Taylor two +mortal hours. Off to Chicago to-night--Hahn. 'Fore he goes, detail in +bureau business got to be established. Hahn wants to go openly--one of +the public--see 'f he c'n do business." + +"Well, what's the objection?" + +"_No_ objection. Only Taylor's kept him waitin' such an infernal time, +Hahn won't be able lay hands on anybody right sort before bureau shuts. +Wants a witness. Fellow seems think I c'n hang fishin'-line out the +window and hook what he calls 'suitable witness.' S'pose _you_ +wouldn't?" + +Napier was growing accustomed to exigencies and odd manners. He had the +man in. Once or twice before he'd seen here the clean-shaven young +German-American, with his look of the typical waiter (which he wasn't) +over-fed, under-exercised, a little scornful, with a leaden eye fixed on +the main chance. One thought instinctively of tips as one's own eye, +leaden or otherwise, took in his "waiting" air. He regarded his +prospective companion without enthusiasm. + +"You can't wear a stove-pipe hat," he said, "and you'd have to borrow a +different overcoat." + +Napier's instinctive reluctance was overborne by Macray's +misinterpreting its origin. "Schwarz won't be there. No fear! All same, +no sense exciting remark." + +Napier in his turn made no secret of the ground of his special interest +in the enterprise. "Why do you think she's behind this concern?" + +Macray's curt: "Don't think. Know," decided Napier. + +Two flights up, in a derelict office building on lower Broadway, they +found a back room with a number on the door. It bore no business sign, +no name. + +The arrangement that Hahn should do the talking was initiated in the +German tongue as they climbed the dingy stairs. Napier's secret +uneasiness took alarm at the sound of steps behind. He looked back. On +the first landing, under the flaring gas, which of itself was a sign of +the outworn character of the place, a shabby old man in a fur cap was +coming up behind them. Coming stealthily, Napier felt. But Hahn talked +on stolidly about a hypothetical family in Karlsruhe. He knocked at the +door, and then went in. + +A hairless head, with outstanding ears, bent over a table, reading. The +gas jet, directly above, was set in a green tin reflector, and all the +light in the room seemed to concentrate itself on that corpse-white +cranium; or, rather, the effect was as though the masked light, instead +of being thrown on the man's head, had its origin there. A polished and +luminous orb, it seemed to contain the shining like one of those +porcelain globes over the old-time lamps. + +"Is dis de blace vhere I can send money to Sharmany?" Hahn inquired. + +"Yep," said the clerk. "Shut the door, will you?" + +Hahn had not budged. "Bott _safe_, hein?" he said. + +"Absolute." The man got up and shut the door. It was a drafty old place, +he explained. "Safe?" he went on, resuming his place and gathering the +light to himself again. This was not only a safe way; it was the only +safe way. + +Hahn produced a worn pocket-book. He wanted to send fifteen dollars to +Karslruhe. + +Fifteen dollars? It was a long way to send only fifteen dollars. The +worst of it was, the commission was heavier in proportion for a small +sum like that. It cost the company as much to send fifteen dollars as it +would cost to send five hundred. + +"Vot gompany?" + +"This one. Who sent you here?" + +"Fleischmann, Sevent' Avenue." + +"Well, didn't he tell you about the company?" + +"All Fleischmann tell me is de address." What he wanted, Hahn went on, +was to send fifteen dollars every fortnight. + +"Oh, every fortnight." The polished head bent over the address. + +Hahn opened his pocket-book and fingered some bills. But how was he to +know the money would reach Karlsruhe? + +"Simple enough; we guarantee it. I give you a receipt." The man opened a +book of printed forms, dipped a pen into a dirty ink-stand, and wrote +the date. + +How long, the visitor insisted, before he would hear from his family +that the money had come? + +"Depends on how soon they write." The tone was distinctly superior. +"Family habits in these matters are different, we find." + +His family acknowledged their letters instantly, Hahn said, if they got +them. They _hadn't_ been getting them. + +"You have been here before?" + +"No." + +"I thought not. Then why did you expect your letters to get through, +above all if they had money in them?" The unshadowed eyes in the pudding +visage rested on the three five-dollar bills Hahn still held in his +hand. + +Hahn wished to know how soon he might hear if his family acknowledged at +once. + +"As a rule inside six weeks." + +What would be the longest time, Hahn then wished to know. + +"Two months--" + +"It is a lie!" came from a crack in the noiselessly opened door. At a +child's height from the floor a fur cap was thrust in. The gray beard +sticking out beyond the mangy headgear gave the old face a fierceness +instantly contradicted by the eyes. + +"I haf a letter," he said, trembling with excitement. "De money I send +two mont' before Christmas it nefer come. De money my friend send t'ree +veek before dat, it nefer come. You gif me my money back!" He came in, +swinging his greasy coat-tails about his shambling legs. "Here is de +baper to show you get my money." + +The altercation went on in German, with excuses, threats. "Get out, or +the police--" + +"Oh, you vill not like bolice here." + +There was righteous anger on the part of the man at the desk; but a +certain caution, too. Nobody could say at a time like this that in one +case out of thousands something wholly unforeseen might not happen to +delay-- + +"It is _not_ delayed!" the little man screamed. "It did not come! It +vill not come! Vhere is it? Gif it back!" + +"Ah-h, I remember you now!" the unlashed eyelids narrowed. "In your +case, and to an address like that--" + +"Vot de matter vid the address?" screamed the old man. "Berfectly goot +address!" + +"I warned you it would be wisest to insure." He turned bruskly away from +the agitated figure. "I will talk to you when I've finished. These +gentlemen are in a hurry." + +"Not at all. No, certainly not." Hahn backed to the door. He would wait. + +"Vy to insure," the old man was shrilling, "if to send by you is, like +you said, so safe? _Hein?_" He leaned over and hammered the ink-stained +desk with a dirty fist. + +The man behind the receipt-book shifted his position. He got up, and the +light in the globe he bore on his shoulders was extinguished as by the +turn of a screw. Hands in pocket, he stood in a shadow above the green +reflector. "Safe, money undoubtedly is, in our hands. If," he repeated, +"in one case out of a thousand it gets out of our hands, what then? +Maybe you have heard there is a war? Maybe you can read?" + +The old man gibbered with rage and offended pride; but the lines of +defeat, which life had stamped on his face, deepened. + +"Very well," said the other, with an effrontery that said he had marked +the signs, "since you can read, you know who it is who robs the mails. +Only twice since the war have they caught us, and we have sent tens of +thousands of dollars. Ask the thieves of English where your money is!" + +"Ai!" In the middle of the tirade the old man had turned away and spread +out his hands in impotent grief. + +"In war," the agent called after the broken figure--"in war it is wise +to insure." + +"Gone! All gone! Ai!" The quavering old voice trailed down the dingy +stair. + +Hahn mumbled an excuse, and the two new clients withdrew despite +vigorous protests. Once outside the room, Hahn plunged down the two +flights as though in fear of his life. When Napier reached the street +there was no trace anywhere of either the old man, or of Hahn. + +He recognized their collaboration in the account given in the New York +papers, a few days later, of an exposure of one of the several concerns, +all, it was hinted, under one (unnamed) management which, with no +capital beyond a back room, a table, a chair, and a clerk behind a book +of receipt "blanks," raked in hundreds and thousands from gullible +people who thought they were helping their friends in Germany. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +"Schwarzenberg and her friends will be a little straitened for a while +after this," said Taylor. + +The expression "her friends" grated on Napier, and Napier was already in +a restless, uncertain mood. Taylor had noticed that. Significant as both +men "deemed" the interview with the President, Napier had hurried over +it to canvass and sift the Hahn adventure. + +Taylor, lounging on the sofa, sipped his liqueur at his ease. How did he +know the bulk of the bureau's money went into Schwarzenberg's pocket? +Two reasons. First, she'd earned it. Languishing business doing a +roaring trade from the moment she took hold. Second, the fellow she set +to watch the rogues she'd put in charge was a rogue himself. + +"Oh, we've deserved well of our country in blocking up a few of those +rat-holes," Taylor concluded. + +"My interest in it," Napier paused to say, "wasn't pure patriotism. It's +made me pretty sick to see this Miss Ellis--rather a friend of mine she +is, very intimate with my chief's family--so hopelessly taken in. I had +an idea this bureau business might show up--" + +Taylor abandoned his lounging posture. He sat looking at Napier very +steadily out of his greenish eyes. + +"Oh, I quite understand," Napier went on, "the exposure is too discreet +to be of any use to me." + +"I should rather think so!" remarked Mr. Taylor. + +"All the same, it isn't fair, leaving people like the Ellises in the +dark. The mother is off to the Pacific coast to-morrow." Napier added +that he was due at their hotel in half an hour. He was going to talk to +them, he said. + +Still Taylor sat there, regarding his guest through a haze of cigar +smoke. "I thought," he said after a moment, "you mentioned that you +_had_ talked to them--to the girl, anyway." + +"I said I'd told Miss Ellis what Singleton found in Schwarzenberg's box. +And God knows that _ought_ to have been enough--" + +"Too much," said Taylor, quietly. "Of course they passed it on to +Schwarzenberg." + +Napier doubted that. "You don't know the Ellises," he said, ignoring the +limitations of his own acquaintance. No, his mistake had not been in +telling too much. His mistake was that he hadn't told the Ellises +enough. He was going to repair the mistake to-night. + +"How are you going to do that?" Taylor asked in the same careful tone. + +By telling them--telling the girl, anyway--that he'd avoided telling her +before--the _proved_ desperate character of this woman's accomplices. + +A peculiar fixity came into Taylor's green eyes. + +"You can't pass on information we've put in your way here." + +"Certainly not," returned Napier with some heat. "What I shall tell has +nothing whatever to do with you. I sha'n't hint bureau." Again he +consulted his watch. The time dragged. + +"You'd mind, I suppose, giving me an idea what you do mean to hint?" + +"I sha'n't hint at all. And I've come here to-night expressly to tell +you, first, that I mean the Ellises to know about Gull Island. About +Greta von Schwarzenberg's connection with it and with the man we found +there." + +There was silence in the room. + +"I dare say you are wondering why, in the face of the exigency, I've put +it off?" + +Taylor had stopped smoking, but he said nothing. + +"If I'd told her what I found Carl Pforzheim up to on Gull Island, she'd +have to know what became of Carl. Well, I'm now going to tell her." + +"You can't do that!" Taylor had come to life. He leaned forward, +blinking his white lashes as if a cinder had blown in his eye. + +"Why can't I?" + +"For one thing, telling the Ellises would be as good as giving +Schwarzenberg the key to the whole Gull Island business." + +"Well, why not? Do her good. Put the fear of God into her, perhaps. And +she can't spoil a game that's over and ended." + +Taylor laid down his cigar. + +"The Gull Island game," he said in his guarded voice, "_isn't_ over and +ended." + +Napier stood waiting. + +"We've got one of our best men there this minute, personating Carl +Pforzheim." Taylor nodded in the face of Napier's stark astonishment. +"Your friend Singleton. He's managed the Gull Island job from the +beginning. Went up again the day after you were there. Wirelessed the +German agent at Amsterdam that he'd had wind of a raid on the island. He +was going to destroy every trace and get out. Singleton saw to it that +the truth of that much was verified, and duly reported to the +Wilhelmstrasse. He promised them--still, of course, in the character of +Pforzheim--to get back to the island as soon as it was safe. Well, he +has got back." + +"What the devil could he tell of any use to Germany that wasn't fatal to +us?" Napier demanded. + +"You don't yet appreciate the situation," Taylor said softly. "It's a +post of special advantage just because the man in charge can choose his +own time to be there. He can give important information that reaches +Germany the merest trifle too late, or information that he knows they've +had already from another quarter. They're fond of verifying their +intelligence. And he tells them things they want to believe and can't +check--things they have to take his word for, things that will throw +dust in the eyes they count on seeing clearest. I tell you, Gull Island +is one of the cogs in the wheel of the British machine. You won't mind +if I'm frank? Well, then, you'd have hard work to commit any +indiscretion"--Taylor rubbed it in--"that would serve Schwarzenberg's +ends so well as to enable her to warn the Germans that a British decoy +was nesting in Carl Pforzheim's place." + +As he stood there, a prey to increasing uneasiness, Napier had his +further glimpse of one of the disintegrating effects of wartime: the +unknown quantity in character. How that had been forced home! Taylor had +seemed "one of the best." No one in the British service was more +trusted, and, Napier's instinct told him, no one more justly. None the +less, Napier didn't see headquarters writing "all this" from the other +side. + +"I suppose," he found himself saying, "I oughtn't to ask you how you +heard about the decoy duck on the island?" + +"Well"--Taylor reflected an instant,--"after all, my instructions--yes, +I'll tell you. I have it on the best possible authority. Ernst Pforzheim +told me." + +"Ernst! Ernst Pforzheim is in an English prison, or rather, he was +before--" + +"Exactly. Before he became of such use to our side. Clever dog as that +fellow Singleton is, he couldn't have worked the Gull Island oracle +without Ernst Pforzheim's help." + +Ernst had helped Singleton! No! no! there were limits. It was, anyway, +safe to say, "You must in that case rather deplore his death." + +"What makes you think he's dead?" Taylor asked. + +"His particular friend, Miss von Schwarzenberg, had the news yesterday." + +"She had, had she? Ha! ha! The canny Ernst!" Taylor subdued his mirth to +say: "Just so. Wilhelmstrasse doesn't have the news. _We're_ all right; +and Master Ernst can go on drawing pay from two governments. Oh, he's a +very practical person, is Ernst. The situation is his own invention. A +piece of 'war economy,' he called it. 'You English hard up for +ammunition. Why waste it shooting a spy when he can give you more +valuable information than anybody in the German Secret Service?'" + +"You can't seriously mean we were such fools as to trust a man like +that?" + +"So far from trusting him, we keep him under surveillance every hour of +his life. Two of our men specially detailed." + +"You aren't telling me he's over here!" + +"Been here six weeks." + +"Then he's a free man!" + +Taylor smiled. "A man who's been doing the sort of business Ernst has, +is never a free man. Nobody knows better than Ernst how little his life +would be worth if he took any liberties. And why should he? This is his +harvest-time. He knows he'll get more out of us than--" + +"Than out of Germany?" + +"They'd ask very awkward questions of Ernst in Germany; he can evade +them here. But there's a day of reckoning waiting for Mr. Ernst in the +fatherland. No one knows better than he that he's safer with us, looked +after by two capital fellows, till after the war. Then off to South +America with a fat bank-account. And, by Jove! he'll have earned it! The +cheek of the devil! Except for one enterprise!" and Mr. Taylor chuckled +as he relit his cigar. + +"We'd been wondering," he went on, "Macray and I, why the beggar had +grown so content never to go out. No more music, no theater, no smart +restaurants, and so far as _we_ could see, no reason on earth why, with +one or other of the men who stick to him day and night, he _shouldn't_ +revisit his old haunts. Not he!" Again that pleased chuckle. "Not so +long as Greta von Schwarzenberg is circulating about New York!" + +"Why, he and she are, or they were, thick as thieves." + +Taylor nodded. + +"And it would be undeniably useful to us to have that relation continue. +It's where our friend draws the line. 'All very well to laugh,' he says +to me, '_you_ don't know the woman. I do. _Nein, danke._' So he sits and +smokes and plays cards, drinks and overeats himself, and is losing his +figure. I can take you round any evening, and you'll see for yourself." + + * * * * * + +"I've come to say good-by." Napier stood before Nan Ellis in the great +public parlor of her hotel. More and more his most private experiences +of American life had seemed conditioned by the vast restlessness of +these places. He noticed that Nan, like many of her compatriots, was +able to achieve an obliviousness to such surroundings that amounted to a +kind of privacy. + +Instead of relinquishing his hand, she had clutched it tighter: "You are +not going back to England?" + +"What's the use of my staying here?" + +"The use?" She let his hand go. Napier received the impression that the +lowering of her tone was less attributable to two or three other +absorbed groups seated about the great room, than to some sudden rush of +feeling that clouded her voice. "You are safe here." + +He looked at her for a moment. Deliberately he shook off the impression +her tone more than her words had made. "No,"--he shook his head,--"I'm +far from safe where you can ring me up." + +"You don't _like_ me to ring you up?" + +He could have laughed if he'd been less oppressed. "It's no use. I see +I can't do anything to protect you. I might as well be on the other side +of the world." + +"No! no!" she protested with an eagerness that caught her breath. +"Besides, you are very far from sure of _getting_ to the other side of +the world as things are." + +His look of angry scorn, for the contingency implied, agitated her. + +"Oh, _do_ believe me! This is a thing I know more about than you do." + +"It isn't a knowledge you should have," he said sternly. + +She swept the rebuke aside in her alarm. "Don't imagine," she said in +that strained undertone--"don't imagine the warnings in the papers +aren't serious. It is one of the things I couldn't write. Why didn't you +come and see me and my mother last Thursday?" + +He was aware of being as little able now, to make idle conversation with +Nan, as he had been that night, after Taylor had barred all use of the +Gull Island evidence. He dropped out mumbled phrases, "Unexpected +business," having "to go to Washington," and was there anything else she +hadn't been able to write? + +Yes, yes. There was a great deal more, more than she had any right to +say. But this much she must tell him: "You aren't to ask me how I know, +and you won't ask me to tell you more than I've a right to. I _have_ a +right!" She flashed an instant's defiance at some unseen opponent, "or +I'll take it, anyhow. The torpedoing is going to be extended. _Yes!_" +she said as though to convince her own shrinking incredulity as much as +his. "Neutral as well as enemy ships. They're going on till England is +as isolated as she's isolated Germany. If England won't believe that, +if England doesn't _realize_,"--she waited an instant as if to give him +time to throw out a life-line of hope to her proviso,--"then," she said +as she took in Napier's motionless figure and stern face--"then what's +before us is too horrible." + +"I am glad you recognize the horror of the German policy." + +"What good will that do!" she began hurriedly, "if you--" and then half +to herself: "But you simply _mustn't go_! You didn't know, perhaps," she +leaned nearer, "passenger-boats have been carrying guns." + +"Really?" said Napier. + +She nodded. "It's true. And that's why the Germans say they will sink +passenger-boats. So they can't be used any more by travelers, now that +they're warned." + +"You see it as simple as that? Germany is to tell neutrals they are not +to travel even in neutral waters!" + +"If we don't use passenger-boats _for_ passenger-boats, they aren't +passenger-boats any more." (Napier heard Schwarzenberg speaking.) "They +go loaded to the guards! Yes, war material for the Allies." + +"If that is so, why is it? Would you see the Allies punished, enslaved, +because the Allies haven't, as Germany has, devoted the last forty years +to making and accumulating arms? Germany--" + +"Oh, it's _America_ I'm thinking of--after you!" she threw in. "If +America's part is going to be just to grow rich and richer out of this +awfulness, I don't know how I shall bear it. And that's what I'm telling +Julian. But all that,"--she swept it aside with one of those quick +motions of a flashing hand,--"if I _beg_ you not to go--" + +"It's no use," said Napier. + +"Nothing I could say or _do_?" + +He shook his head. + +"Very well, then," she said with hurt mouth that quivered, "what is the +name of your boat?" + +He considered a moment. "Don't you think it would be very indiscreet of +me to tell you?" + +"It will be the discreetest thing you ever did in your life." + +"Why do you want to know?" + +"I want to know because"--again she bent to him--"because there's a +black-list." He saw her eyes bright with terror. "You must give me time +to find out...." + +"I see," he interrupted. "You would like me to owe my life to Greta von +Schwarzenberg." + +"To me, Gavan,"--the pallor of her face yielded to a sudden flush,--"if +you could bear that." + +"I haven't decided on my boat," he said. + +"But I thought you came to say good-by?" + +He was going on a few weeks' tour on this side, he said. + +Oh, the lightening in her face. He seemed bent only on teasing her a +little, in withholding the answer to her quick: "Whereabouts are you +going to tour?" When she had waited for the answer that didn't come she +said: "You're afraid I'll tell. Everybody's afraid every one else will +tell. Everybody's changed." + +"Not Miss Greta, surely?" + +"Greta as much as anybody," she flung out. And then, as though she +regretted that ebullition, she added hastily: "I suppose I mustn't ask +you--what next, after the few weeks' tour." + +"Yes, you may ask that," Napier said, the smile going out of his eyes. +"France next." + +They parted with no hint from him of the fact that one result of his +second visit to Washington had been an extension of the highly +successful unofficial mission. + +For Taylor had been right in saying the old sharp demarcations between +government departments were being erased. More and more diplomacy +impinged on the twin provinces of trade and world finance. The astute +were beginning to see that the problem of munitions was own brother to +food supply, which in its turn was a matter of transport. In view of the +now frequent sinkings of Allied ships, not only South American meat, +wheat, but South American tonnage, might become of supreme importance in +a protracted war. Unfortunately, German influence had attained dangerous +proportions in those remote, fertile areas below the equator. Napier and +another unofficial British envoy received orders from home to proceed to +Rio on instructions from the British Ambassador at Washington. + +He returned to New York early in May, to find the country in a state of +excitement such as the United States had not known since the +assassination of Lincoln. Some twenty-four hours before, the Germans had +torpedoed the _Lusitania_. Fifteen hundred lives had been sacrificed. +The effect on Napier was the effect on many. The _Lusitania_ dead +recruited tens of thousands. + +On the afternoon of the day of his arrival in New York, Napier returned +to his hotel, having engaged passage to England by the next ship. + +A lady, he was told, waited to see him. What lady was likeliest to have +news so quickly of his arrival? He shrank from the thought of Greta as +from something reptilian. It _couldn't_ be Greta on this day of all +days. And who else, but the being of all the world he most hungered to +see? So thinking, he made his way among the hosts of horror-stricken +people, one sole theme in every mouth, _Lusitania! Lusitania!_ Some, and +not one most voluble or outwardly most excited, uttered the word War +with an accent that Napier wished might have been heard across the +Rhine. He kept on telling himself that he knew it would be Nan he should +find waiting; but he was not prepared for the Nan he found, nor for that +low exclamation: "At last! At _last_!" nor for the shaken voice in +which she disposed of his question how had she known of his arrival. + +"An arrangement with the clerk," she said, to ring her up as soon-- + +"Then _that_ was before!"--said Napier hungrily. + +"Yes, before the awful news." A shuddering vagueness seemed to close +about her like a mist. It shut out the moment's shining at his coming. +He could see that blank horror at the tragedy obscured for the moment +everything else in life. + +Only Napier, it seemed, felt the added strain of this coming and going +of excited people, the bringing in of telegrams, the dictating of +others. The girl paid no more attention to the other people scattered +about the great room, to their tension or their tears, than they to +hers. As she turned to throw her trembling body down in a chair by the +window, the look in her eyes startled Napier. + +"And did you see what the papers said?" she demanded. + +The terrible newspaper accounts, which he had not yet found time to +read, she had by heart. Behind that veil of nervous vagueness he caught +glimpses of the intensity of her realization--her participation, one +might almost say--in the scenes off the Irish coast. + +"Had you any special friend on board?" he asked. + +"Special fr--" she repeated in that low voice. And then her note climbed +quickly to what for her was the climax of the huge disaster. "They were +Americans!" So she confessed that limitation which a faulty imagination +sets to our humanity--a limitation she had imagined she despised. +"Americans they were, and innocent. I keep thinking most of the +children. There were such lots of children, Gavan, on that boat. I kept +seeing them all night long. I could hear their voices growing weaker--" +her own failed her for a moment. And when she found it again, it was a +different voice altogether, firm and bitter. "People say to me, 'the +_Lusitania_ was warned not to sail.'" + +Yes, Napier had heard that was so. + +"As if _that_ could excuse--it's what Greta says. 'They were warned,' +she keeps repeating. 'They disobeyed the warning.' The little children, +the babies disobeyed the German warning! Oh-h!" The small tightened fist +beat upon one knee to call back the self-control that threatened to +desert her. "I've had a horrible morning with Greta. She--something has +died in Greta. I'd been feeling ever since--" Again she broke off and +seemed to seize upon comparative commonplace to steady her nerves. "It +was true about her being married. She admitted it the day she read of +Mr. Guedalla's death in the paper. She got some money. It wasn't her not +telling us she was married; it was other things. Oh, I've been unhappy +enough! But this--_this_! Gavan, I couldn't get her to say it was +horrible. She wasn't even sorry. Oh, Gavan, _she was glad_!" The locked +fingers writhed in her lap. She seemed not to know that she was weeping. +"What do you think Greta said at last? 'It would be a lesson,' she said. +A lesson! To torture and kill fifteen hundred innocent people. A lesson +to the children! To little babies!" She turned her quivering face away a +moment. "I think," she said under her broken breath--"I think I should +have gone mad if you hadn't come back. Oh, I'm so glad you're back!" + + * * * * * + +He simply hadn't the courage at that moment to tell her he was going to +sail for England the following day. He told her in a very gentle note +sent late in the afternoon. They were to dine together. + +She met him with steady looks. + +"I've cabled to Julian," she said immediately, "that I'm coming back +with you." + +The _Parnassian_ was to sail at ten. + +Napier had stood outside the entrance to the dock, waiting for Nan, +since ten minutes past nine. At twenty minutes to ten there she was at +last. + +"But where is your luggage?" he called out. He had warned her not to +trust it to other hands. In that second before the cab drew alongside +something in the face at the window prepared him for the answer. "That's +why I am late. I had to have everything taken off. And I tried to +telephone you. Just as I was leaving--this came." She held a paper +toward him as she got out of the cab. She stood there while he read: + + I depend on your waiting till I come sailing to-day _Olympic_. + + JULIAN. + +As Napier looked up, speechless in that first moment, she whispered: +"Serves me right. Greta said, I was running away." She put out her hand +and steadied herself against the window-frame of the cab. "Where you're +going they shoot deserters, don't they! Well, I've been shot. Oh, not +fatally! just in the leg. Enough to stop me." + +"You are going to wait for Julian?" + +"What else is possible?" She hung her head. "He and the others, they've +depended on me. Well, they must not any more. And when he comes,"--her +breast heaved as she brought it out,--"I shall tell him something else." + +"Tell Julian! What shall you tell Julian?" + +The lifted eyes were swimming. + +"That it's _you_. That to see you go without me breaks my heart." + +"Nan!" he cried and pulled himself up with an effort that brought the +blood into his face. Other passengers, arriving late, for all their own +agitation at the prospect of some hitch in getting themselves and their +baggage on board, stared back over their shoulders at the leave-taking +out in the street. + +Napier flung a "Wait!" to the cabman, and held his watch in one hand. +"Come," he said and took Nan by the arm. He walked her a little way from +the dock entrance. + +"I think," he went on gravely, "I _wouldn't_ tell Julian. You see, Nan, +you've got to consider that I mayn't be coming back." He didn't look at +her. "What's the _use_ of telling Julian? Isn't there enough misery in +the world without adding to it?" + +"That's what Julian and I think," she said, blurring her words. "Enough +misery in the world without war. You never cared about that old misery +as Julian did. And that's what makes it so--so--not to be borne that you +should feel you have to go and meet the new horror out there." + +"Well, I do feel like that," he said. + +"And yet it isn't any longer just duty. You want to go!" she cried. "I +saw that yesterday when we talked about the _Lusitania_." + +"Yes," he said grimly, "I want to go." + +"Well, so do lots of my countrymen." And Napier couldn't have told +whether dismay or pride was dominant in the new note. His hand slipped +down her arm and found her fingers. Napier's valet, Day, came running +out of the dock-gates. He looked distractedly across the wide, open +space before the slips. + +"Yes!" Napier hailed him. "I'll be there!" He gripped her hand hard +before he let it go. "I'll have to run for it. Good-by." On an impulse, +whether mere instinct to cover his emotion or some obscurer working of +the mind behind his wretchedness, he caught Julian's cable out of her +hold. He held the paper in front of his misty eyes as he hurried toward +the dock entrance. The hour the message had been sent from London struck +him now for the first time. He halted suddenly. In a voice harsh with +the effort to keep it steady he called back: "Did Greta know that you +meant to go with me?" + +"Yes," came the panting answer as the girl ran forward a few steps. "I +told her before I saw you that I couldn't bear it over here any longer. +And now you--you are leaving me!" She stopped. + +"You'll lose the boat, sir!" Day called out. + +Napier's last vision of Nan Ellis showed the girl still standing there +looking after him and sobbing openly in the street. + +This cable, he knew now was no reply to Nan's. It was the reply to some +message sent hours earlier by Greta von Schwarzenberg. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Napier and Julian exchanged wireless messages as they passed each other +on the high seas. "Nan is waiting for you in New York," was Napier's +greeting. + +When next Napier heard of either of them, he was in France; those two +were together in America. Then he heard of Nan's being in London "for +two weeks." Next she wrote him a line from New York: "Because Julian is +over-worked, and he's had horrid letters from home. Please write him +something cheerful." + +Napier responded to this invitation by sending a sealed packet through +the foreign-office bag, giving a brief account of Greta von +Schwarzenberg's more pernicious activities. He ended by commending +Julian to Roderick Taylor for confirmation. The answer to this, +anxiously waited for, came in the form of a truly Julianesque +denunciation of all secret service: "As long as we employ spies we shall +suffer from spies." Greta, according to Julian, had been alarmed and +harried into associations alien to her nature. As to the incontestable +fact that after being deported, she had slipped back to England and had +crossed the ocean disguised as a Belgian, that was "our doing. If we go +interfering with freedom of travel, we must expect--" For his own part, +he was busied from morning till night about matters of major importance. +He had no time for fellows like Taylor. In some ways America was +disappointing, but England was going from bad to worse. + +From one and all of Julian's letters of that period Napier gathered that +for refreshment in a very dusty time, Julian bathed his spirit in Nan +Ellis's unfailing sympathy and faith. Driven and harassed as Julian was, +alienated from his family, divided from old friends, with neither health +nor energy to make new, he seemed able to wait for the girl's +slow-forming inclination toward a closer relation, since as he wrote in +his astonishing way--"since she is of such service to the work." Her +special "service" seemed to be the going back and forth between London +and New York. + +Through all that trench nightmare compounded of dirt, physical and +mental misery, and hourly danger, the bitter knowledge was pressed home +that the being Gavan Napier loved best on earth was crossing and +re-crossing the Atlantic on an errand he abhorred. An errand which he +himself by putting the secret-service people on the track of Atlantic +contraband, had changed from something safe and easy into something so +difficult and so full of peril that he quailed before opening those +letters of Julian's, which might tell of the failure, the detection, the +arrest of the messenger. + +From English sources, as the months went on, echoes reached Napier in +the trenches of Mr. Julian Grant's writings and speeches on the other +side of the Atlantic. These were utterances of such a character as to +bring disaster upon certain persons in London held responsible for not +foreseeing the inadvisability of allowing the notorious pacifist to +cross the Atlantic. + +It was at a time when Anglo-American relations had suffered to the +point of danger by the British authorities having held up American ships +carrying supplies which would ultimately find their way through neutral +countries to Germany. Whether owing to the fact that German propaganda +in the United States was then at the height of its success, the war +spirit called to life by the _Lusitania_ disaster languished during a +protracted interchange of Notes between the United States and the +Central powers. + + * * * * * + +Nan was as poor a letter-writer as Julian was admirable. One of her +meager little missives reached Napier soon after the so-called "great +advance" which toward the end of September, 1915, gained a fragment of +French soil about Loos at colossal cost. + +"I want you to know," she wrote, "that I've been learning these last +months in New York what the triumphs of German methods would mean for +the world. Here, in the midst of all this luxury and waste, I've come to +envy loss and sacrifice. If we in America don't get our share of it, I +don't know what is to become of us." And then, from the passionate +patriot, that passing mock at "America, from a safe distance, +distributing victuals and justice to people giving up their lives." + +Looking back, after all the turmoil and tragedy had gone by, Napier +realized, as clearly as though he had been an eye-witness, the despair +that fell on Julian when he heard from her own lips that Nan was +"against what Germany stands for. I want my country to be against it," +she wrote Napier, "and there seems to be only one way. It isn't, not +yet, the way of peace. Well, there it is. I have failed Julian in the +work he cares more about than anything in the world. I say to myself, I +won't fail him in other ways if I can help it. What do you say, Gavan?" + +Before there was time to "say," Napier had received his two wounds, a +shell-shattered foot and a damaged right wrist. He was sent home, and +for six-and-thirty days lay chafing in a London hospital. The time hung +horribly. Most of Napier's friends were in active service or dead; the +rest were swamped in work. He'd have gone out of his mind, he said +afterward, if it hadn't been for Tommy Durrant. Tommy, with his +eye-glass and his pre-war elegance unimpaired, his alertness and sound +sense increased by new responsibilities, was still behind the old scenes +and in and out of the new as well. He had been "lent" to the Admiralty +Intelligence Department. Tommy was full of the increasing difficulty in +Anglo-American relations. One day he came in full of "a scheme we've +just put through"--a scheme talked of with a careless air, but in a +voice carefully modulated. + +"That woman on the other side who used to be at the McIntyres'--came +back as a Belgian nun after we'd deported her, you know--well, your +friend in New York, Taylor, has traced a beastly lot of trouble to her +and her gang. For months Taylor's kept telling our people over here it +was childish to go straining every nerve to keep the American balance +from tipping the wrong way, pouring out money, losing prestige, above +all, losing time, while we leave people like Schwarzenberg and her nest +of adders to breed their poison--" + +"What can we do?" Napier interrupted, hopeless of the answer. + +"Get her out of that." + +"Out of America?" + +Tommy nodded with such vigor his eye-glass fell out. + +"I admit it'll be damned difficult, but Singleton," he said, replacing +the monocle firmly once more--"Singleton thinks he's found the way." +Then, in the deepest confidence, Tommy told Napier about an ex-German +spy, one Ernst Pforzheim, who'd had relations with the Schwarzenberg +woman. "He'd done a lot of useful work in America as well as here, but +Singleton had got our people to tell him they weren't satisfied. There +was really only one thing they wanted of Pforzheim, and he hadn't done +it. He'd already told the chief there were special reasons why he, +Pforzheim, of all people in the world, shouldn't touch this +Schwarzenberg business. The chief couldn't see it. + +"'But I'm _dead_!" wails Pforzheim. + +"'You've got to come alive,' the chief grinned. But you never in your +life saw a man as depressed as that German when he heard he was somehow +or other to find a way to rid us of Schwarzenberg. + +"'To rid you of her?' he says, his eyes bulging. 'She's a deal more +likely to rid you of me.' + +"The chief looked as if he could bear that, but he said all he insisted +on was that she should be got out of America. No power under heaven, +Pforzheim told him, would tempt Schwarzenberg to leave America. + +"'You set me an impossible task!' he wept. + +"'It's the condition,' says the chief. + +"'It's my death-sentence,' says Pforzheim. That was how he went off." + +For the next three weeks, whenever Tommy appeared, Napier would ask, as +though Ernst Pforzheim, too, were in hospital, how that person was +"getting on." + +Though Tommy was forever full of other news, all that he was able to +produce relating to the luckless Ernst was that he'd disappeared. + + * * * * * + +Napier hadn't succeeded in getting his letters forwarded from France in +those terrible days. After four weeks in hospital he cabled Julian what +had happened and that he was getting on all right. A fortnight later, +the day of Napier's discharge, came a telegram from New York. + + Returning with Nan to-morrow. _S. S. Leyden._ + + JULIAN. + +Not altogether by the ways that would have seemed most direct, not +solely through the principals concerned, did Napier come by his most +intimate knowledge of what happened on that voyage, which was for many +to be the last. From his long familiarity with the way Julian "took +things"; from familiarity, not long, but lit by the lamp of passion, +with the natural turns and reactions of Nan Ellis, Napier filled in the +outlines of the widely published and privately rehearsed story, until to +him, the lover on shore, the experiences of that voyage wore an +actuality denied to many of those who in their own persons lived out the +awful hours. As it accumulated, this knowledge of Napier's came to be of +that completer type that some of us cherish concerning matters in which +our sharing has been of the kind invisible. We were not "there" in any +ordinary sense. Yet indubitably we are more intensely there, in that we +are not blinded by panic or numbed by the mental or the bodily blow. +We, aloof in the conning-towers of love, are spared no sight, no pang. +We look down with every natural sense sharpened; with some perceptions, +called as yet supernatural, giving voices to the silence and to the +darkness vision. But apart from these less generally recognized avenues +of information, there were the great outstanding facts which filled the +papers of two hemispheres. + +The first six days of the _Leyden's_ voyage were, from the steamship +company's point of view, wholly uneventful. Mr. Julian Grant had come on +board obviously far from well. The reporters who interviewed him just +before he sailed remarked upon the fact. Hallett Newcomb, a middle-aged +Englishman of letters, returning home upon conclusion of an extended +lecture tour, who had some pre-war acquaintance with Mr. Grant and yet +more with Gavan Napier, had been struck at once by the change. Julian +Grant's litheness had become fragility, almost emaciation. He walked +with the old briskness, but as under a load. Those little lines slanting +away from each side of the mustache should have taken the antique pencil +another ten years to grave. Grant hadn't yet given his life in the Great +War, but of a surety he had given his youth. It was gone forever. In +those bright Indian-summer days that followed he would lie bundled up in +his deck-chair while hour after hour, in that low, comforting voice, the +girl who was his traveling companion read to him. The passengers +commented on a supposed likeness between the two, though there was +little in it beyond a common delicacy of feature and identity of +coloring. People on the _Leyden_, according to Newcomb, took the pair at +first for brother and sister. Anyway, she treated him like a brother, a +younger brother who was to be soothed and cared for. + +The matter in those books and papers that Mr. Grant seemed never to have +enough of was not such stuff as would have soothed the British censor. +However, it stirred to enthusiasm the frequent visitor to that sheltered +nook on the deck--Miss Genevieve Sherman, as the forged passport gave +out Miss Ellis's fascinating black-haired friend. To the fact that Miss +Ellis didn't seem to know the lady was her friend, Mr. Hallett Newcomb +was an unwilling witness. He had chanced to see the younger woman making +her escape from the other on deck, only to be trapped in the cul-de-sac +corridor at the bottom of which was Newcomb's cabin. Behind the +half-hooked-back door he was looking through his papers for a registered +cable address. The tete-a-tete outside began so quietly that he had for +those first moments no sense of hearing anything private. + +"So you didn't expect to see me," said Miss Genevieve Sherman whom the +girl called Greta. + +"How in the world could I expect such a thing?" + +"Why not?" + +"Why not! For the reason that sends my heart into my mouth when I +realize only a little of"--the girl's voice hesitated--"of what you must +know far more. The risk, Greta, the awful risk!" + +"It's dear of you"--the heavier voice was caressing--"_dear_ of you to +keep thinking of that. And you're a clever child to have spotted me at +once." + +"Clever? I've seen you as so many people by now, I think I've got down +at last to the things you can't change." The weight of sadness in the +words brought out one of the woman's challenging laughs. + +"I gather that what you think the essential me doesn't make you very +gay, dear child." + +The dear child said nothing. + +"You shouldn't be surprised to see me here, running some risk it's +useless to deny; but after the way we parted, what else could you +expect?" + +"Greta, you haven't come because of--not really because of me?" + +"You've never realized," said the appealing voice, "what you were to +me." + +There was a longer pause and then, half choked, two little sentences +fell out: "It all seems no good any more. I shall never feel the same." + +"Not the _same_, perhaps. You may feel something better, closer. Anyhow, +I couldn't let you go away, to the other side of the world without--Why, +Nan you didn't even answer my letters!" + +"I couldn't." + +"_Couldn't?_" + +"There wasn't any more to say." + +"That's where you're wrong. There _is_ more to say. And that's one +reason why I'm here--" + +Newcomb slammed down the top of his portmanteau and rattled his keys. + +Any ill success she may have had with the girl did not prevent Miss +Greta from seizing every opportunity to work on the sympathies of the +gentleman, above all, to ally herself with his international ideals. +"You and I" was a phrase which Newcomb often caught as he strolled by; +"from our point of view," was another. One of the impressions that was +to remain longest, because so often renewed during the week at sea, was +the group of which Grant remained the center; he lying spent, in his +chair; Miss Ellis in another, finger in book and eyes lowered; while on +the other side of him sat Miss Greta, suave, smiling, talking to Mr. +Grant, but turning ingratiatingly every now and then to the girl, only +to be met by that refusal of the eyes even more marked than the +blankness of her silence. + +Miss Greta did not continue to take this irresponsiveness well. Behind +the continued and tireless effort her mood hardened, her resentment +grew. + +Newcomb could see that much, though she pretended with some success to +make up for any disappointment, and more than make up, by turning the +head of a lanky American youth. + +The source of Mr. Craig Ashmole's attraction baffled Newcomb till he +found out the young man's business: Mr. Ashmole was on his way to +England to fill a telegraphy post. Two days out from New York one of the +_Leyden's_ wireless operators had taken to his bed; Mr. Ashmole was now +installed as deputy assistant. The carroty and myopic youth was not +above twenty-three and very keen about his job. He knew it well in its +scientific, if not in its political, aspect; and he knew women not at +all. Miss Greta's amused effort to fill up this hiatus in his education +afforded no less amusement to certain lookers-on at the little comedy, +as they thought it. + +This was not the view of the one or two who knew the persistent fight +made by the lady, that first day out, for the privilege of receiving +wireless messages. Under the new rule no one had access to outside news +except specially privileged official persons. It was doubtful if the +rule held good after Miss Greta had publicly flouted more personable men +in favor of the deputy-assistant operator. At carefully chosen times +and, for the most part, in out-of-the-way corners she flirted +outrageously with the absurd Ashmole. She dazed him, she dazzled him, +she rattled him, she pumped him. She raised him to heaven, she reduced +him to despair. She comforted him till he saw stars on the blackest +night. + +It was Saturday, and they had been six days at sea. But for the fact +that the captain had gone ninety miles out of his course for some good +reason of his own, they might, before the light of that day failed, have +been sighting the round towers on the Irish coast. + +The usual restlessness of the last hours of a voyage, when people +alternately pack and write letters, or pack and feverishly cement new +friendships and pack, was augmented by the fact of each passenger +finding in his cabin late that afternoon a card on which appeared the +sinister legend, "In case of need your boat is--" and a number followed. +The very calmness of the information, its manner of conveyance, +increased the eeriness of the warning. + + * * * * * + +Was it the lifeboat-card which those two, Grant and Miss Ellis, were +discussing with that absorbed intensity? + +When Newcomb had finished his four miles with the second officer and the +congressman from Vermont, he came to a stop by Grant's corner in time to +hear the girl break into the middle of something he was saying and urge +Grant to go below. He was to try to sleep off his headache; anyway, +"make up a little for loss of rest before--before--" she stumbled and +looked away an instant. A world of trouble was in the face she turned +again to watch the slight figure go swaying down the deck and catch at +the jamb of the door to steady himself an instant before he disappeared +into the companionway. He had left a book open on his rug. On the deck, +all around his chair, lay the modern exemplars of that literature of +peace which seems, like the old, to bring the sword. + +Newcomb's eye roved once again over titles in English and German, and +from the scattered incrimination he looked at the face of the girl. + +"I seem to have noticed that these sentiments don't stir you to much +enthusiasm." + +"They are worthy of enthusiasm," she answered, as though parrying an +attack on Julian behind his back. + +"Why do you make phrases?" Newcomb demanded. + +"I don't." Whether her quickened look sprang from a pricked conscience +Newcomb couldn't be sure. "Well, _aren't_ they full"--her eyes swept the +litter of books and papers--"_full_ of fine and splendid things? You +know they are. Only--" + +"Only?" + +She drew herself up, and the tight-pressed lips parted to say: "However +much we believe them, if the house was on fire, we couldn't think about +these things. The house _is_ on fire. I can't think about--anything +except saving the house and the people who are being burnt." + +"Doesn't Mr. Grant tell you that those are exactly _his_ aims--'to save +the house' and 'to save the people'?" + +"Yes," she owned sadly; "he thinks about saving everything except +himself." She stopped abruptly, frightened at having made an admission +which may have implied much or little. She studied Newcomb a moment with +a gaze that made him long to say: "Yes, believe in me. Why shouldn't +you?" + +Whether the silent monition reached her, certainly her next words showed +no agitation, rather, a queer, poised sagacity. + +"What I sit here thinking," she went on, "is that maybe a stupid +fireman, even a bad, lying fireman, could 'save the house' where +Julian--Julian would only be burnt to death with the rest." + +As though acting on sudden impulse, Newcomb brought out the question he +had been longing to put all these days. + +"Do you mind my asking you why are you leaving home at a time when +traveling is, to say the least--" In the pause he said to himself: She +won't trust me. Why should she--except for the difference it had seemed +to make to her when she learned that he was a friend not only of +Grant's, but of Gavan Napier's. In the first days they had talked about +Napier. + +"I've come," she said after a moment--"I've come because, do what I +would, I couldn't prevent Mr. Grant's coming." + +"I see. You wouldn't be on this ship if Mr. Grant weren't." + +She hesitated again. + +"You can see how ill he is, and his coming to America and getting deeper +into--all this, holding those meetings and being so attacked about them +at home, that's my doing." + +"_Your_ doing!" said Newcomb, giving astonishment the rein. + +"Yes. If I hadn't written to him--the things I did write, he wouldn't +have come to America." + +"What things?" + +"I can't tell anybody that. But it's because I didn't do something I'd +promised, that's why Julian's here. Since there are things I _can't_ do, +it's my business to do what I can." Very wisely Newcomb sat silent; she, +too, as long as she could bear it. "I've told you this,--you see how +private it is,--but I've told you because--" Her voice clouded. She +turned away her head. + +"Isn't it because you realize that I'd like to be of some use if I +could?" + +"Would you--_could_ you help about him--about Mr. Grant?" + +Newcomb's moment of silence unnerved her. + +"Oh, if you _knew_ how we all tried to keep him in America!" + +"Wouldn't he have stayed," Newcomb dared to ask, "if you had stayed?" + +"No! no! Oh, you don't understand Julian. He has a duty--to the other +men at home and to the country. He thinks he can help; you've heard him. +'While some men, who see it that way, are fighting for liberty abroad, +it's laid on others to fight for liberty at home.' I could almost be +glad he is so ill if only we had landed and I could get him home to +Scotland! I didn't know whether you might, perhaps, be willing to help +me to do that." + +"Willing? I would indeed be willing. The question is: my power, +anybody's power." + +She bent forward, but the breath that should have gone in words she held +an instant. And then very low the syllables fell out: "What will they +do--when we land?" + +"What will they do?" + +"Yes, to Julian." + +"I don't know." + +"You haven't the least idea? Well, Julian has. He's been telling me, +preparing me this afternoon." + +"What has he been telling you?" + +"That--these--these are his last hours as a free man." She dropped the +ghost of a sob into the silence, and her head went down into her hands. +It was only for a second. She sat erect again. "What he's been saying in +America is enough, he thinks. Do _you_ think that's enough to put a very +noble person in prison in free England?" + +Newcomb hadn't often wanted more to do anything than he wanted now to +reassure her. It should be accounted to him for righteousness that he +said: "I don't know." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +At dinner that last night, the place of the wireless youth was vacant. +So was the place of the Dutch official next Lady Neave, whom they called +Lady Gieve, because during the first days she had worn her jacket of +that name, deflated, but evident, all day and, according to report, all +night. Half-way across the Atlantic she had been smiled out of her fears +to the extent of carrying the life-preserver over her arm. + +Miss Ellis was the only person who took no part in discussing the rumor +which ran about the ship of a wireless message said to have been +received by the Dutch official. His bedroom steward, also Dutch, had +seen the message--"A great battle and a German defeat." + +The news accounted beyond doubt for the increased noisiness in the +dining saloon. From the table behind Newcomb rose excited accents, "_Es +ist unglaueblich!_" + +Newcomb turned, and caught Miss Ellis's eye. He had changed his place to +the empty one beside her after hearing that Mr. Grant wasn't coming +down--"a headache." + +"The wireleless leakage seems to have let loose a fair amount of _furor +Teutonicus_," he said. + +She nodded; plainly she had heard the news. But she didn't want to +discuss it at a board where old Professor Mohrenheim and his gentle, +kindly wife occupied their places, as polite as ever, but restrained +and preoccupied to-night. Voices from the all-German table rose louder. + +It was known that on the last voyage excitement over some war news, +published in the customary small weekly, had led to a riot. Certain +offended patriots, among both Germans and their opponents, had been +brought to port in irons. This was the first crossing during which no +newspaper had been issued, and no wireless telegrams had appeared on the +notice-board. The wisdom of these measures was abundantly proved. The +mere breath of rumor had transformed the ship's company. Allies put +their heads together and exulted. Neutrals argued more or less openly, +betraying in every word the impossibility of neutrality. The old German +couple at the end of Nan's table sat marooned. They glanced now and +then, wistfully, at the all-German table next them. The sound of their +tongue rumbled and clashed above the jar of crockery and service metal. + +"Isn't it strange,"--Nan leaned to Newcomb as she lowered her +voice,--"when I _used_ to hear German, I'd think about music and poetry +and beautiful words like _Waldesduft_--" + +"And what do you think about now--words like Belgium?" + +"That isn't fair," she said quietly. "All war is awful." + +"But I'd like to know what you do think about, then, instead of music +and _Waldesduft_." + +"No." + +He urged her. "Please!" + +"I couldn't, not at the same table where that dear old couple sit," she +said quickly and glanced down the long table at the Mohrenheims. + +"Tell me upstairs?" + +She shook her head. + +"I don't think I shall even upstairs. If, as I believe, the worst +stories aren't true, it's wrong to repeat them." + +"Why is it wrong to tell me and let me judge if I am to believe?" + +But she wouldn't. "To repeat them gives them a false trueness," she said +in that careful undertone. "Oh, I can't explain; but just to put them +into words seems to spread a poison." + +"You can't trust me to distinguish, to help you to distinguish?" + +Again she shook her head. "What I have to think is, if some people, +mistaken people, believed such things about us Americans, what would I +say if I were asked whether I thought it a good thing that the false +stories against us should be repeated? To make horrible pictures in +people's brains; and, if the brains are weak, to turn them." + +"I am sorry my brains inspire you with such distrust." + +"Perhaps it's my own I'm shaky about. But I don't believe any brain can +keep steady under some stories. No; mustn't think about them." + +"She gets that from Grant," Newcomb decided. He looked across the table. +Next the captain's empty place, sat the only person in the saloon +unmoved, you would say, by the news--a British naval officer, grave, +monosyllabic, and showing just that same face throughout the voyage. Not +so much as a hint about his errand to the States and little enough about +anything else. Until the fourth night out he had slept or dozed over a +book. The only five minutes during which he had appeared really awake +had been when some one in the smoking-room repeated Julian Grant's +asseveration that the German atrocity stories were "faked." "Every +nation tells of its enemy. Only the ignorant and unthinking are taken +in." + +It was then that the officer dozing in the corner lifted that face of +his, with its hard, fine outline like a profile on an old coin, and came +to life. The indifference cleared out of his eyes as low-hung, +slumbering smoke will clear before the blast. + +"If to be taken in by 'faked' stories was _all_ that the innocent had to +fear!" In cold accents he told about a Belgian girl. Daughter of an +officer in the Belgian Army, a man he knew. When the Germans took Antwerp +she was carried off. Fell into the hands of a U-boat captain. When he'd +done with her, handed her over to his crew. She didn't die quickly +enough. They threw her overboard. "An officer's daughter!" he repeated, +as though that were the culminating point of the horror. + +Some one repeated the story to Julian. His anger was a thing no one +would forget. _Believe_ it? Such stories were told for a purpose. It was +"the kind of poison that infects people's wits and loses them their +souls. Makes brute beasts out of humans. There are minds that batten on +such lies. They get decent people to listen in the fevered, abnormal +state all nerves are in nowadays. Foulness that would be choked back +down their obscene throats at other times, it's listened to like some +message out of Sinai or Olympus. I tell you the German U-boat captains +are as good men as ever the hag War breeds. They _must_ be men of +character. You daren't give a job like that to a drunken, rotten roue." + +Here was Miss Greta at last, never so late before and never so +resplendent. Silver sequins and black lace for that last night. + +"I'm glad"--she spoke to a lady across the table--"glad to see you've +emancipated yourself." + +"Emancipated--how?" Lady Neave asked. + +"You've broken the tyranny of the Gieve jacket." + +"Don't tell me I've--" Lady Neave turned to look at the back of her +chair--"yes, gone and forgotten it!" She moved outward on her swiveled +seat. + +"No! no!" The congressman from Vermont protested there was no need to +prepare for anything so grotesque, so melodramatic, as a cold-blooded +attempt to sink this poor old tub. + +Miss Greta held high her braid-crowned head. "This innocent old tub," +she said, "has carried thousands of tons of ammunition; but," she added +relentingly, "I don't think Lady Gieve--oh, forgive me! I mean Lady +Neave," she bent gracious brows upon her opposite neighbor,--"I _quite_ +agree you won't need your packet on this voyage." + +No one answered. In the midst of a general animation, the silence that +reigned again around Greta spoke loud. She stared about her. + +"What has become of the hors d'oeuvres?" she demanded. The Dutch +steward could not have helped hearing. He went on serving the others. +Again she spoke to him, more sharply still. + +"Alvays it ees somet'ing! From de fir-rst you come on board," he +muttered incoherently. + +She turned round in her seat. + +"What? _What_ do you say?" + +"Vhat I say? You need not be down on me because Zhermany is beat." + +Miss Greta stared. + +"Germany beaten! You must be mad." + +The steward's face had grown red; his anger was mounting still. + +"I get it straight," he said. "Dere vas a great battle. De English and +French have beat de Zhermans." + +"It is a lie!" + +"How do you know that?" asked the calm voice of Newcomb at Greta's side. + +"How does one know anything? You wouldn't expect me to consider the +possibility of such a thing just because"--her contempt followed the +steward for those first yards of his progress toward the side +table--"because _that_ sort of creature says so?" She looked round for +understanding. Something in the averted eyes of the company nettled her. +"He says it, _armer Wurm_," she went on with her head high, "from the +same motives that make others long to believe it. Jealousy." + +"Do we understand you to say," Newcomb asked, "that you wouldn't believe +news, however authentic, of a German defeat?" + +"There _couldn't_ be authentic news of a German defeat. If it came from +some one I knew and trusted, if all the people I know and trust combined +to say there had been a German defeat, I should know they were wrong." + +While she waited for the hors d'oeuvres, her handsome shoulders thrown +back, her chin high, she pronounced a paean to Kultur cum militarism. +Newcomb construed it as a letting off pent-up steam, a vent for anger +against Miss Ellis and against the gathering cloud of enemies. But it +was also something more. It had in it an element of fanaticism, mixed +with balked passion for force. A reckless joy in the doctrine of +stick-at-nothing to serve the end. With such an accent we have heard +some one very old, or very young and weak saying, "_We_ bombed them out +of the wood," or, "_We_ took Hill 60." It is a singular thing in +psychology and yet to be explored, this passion on the part of the +physically weaker for those very brute forces in the universe which, but +for their opposites, would be the sure undoing of all but the physically +strongest, and, in the end, of them as well. + +In the midst of her hymn to pro-Teutonism, Ashmole came in, looking more +idiotic than usual, staring about out of his big glasses as though he +couldn't recognize the table. + +"Here we are," Miss Greta hailed him. + +The youth paused by her chair an instant and mumbled something +unintelligible, his eyes goggling as they swept the saloon. + +"They told me the captain was down here." + +Greta took hold of Ashmole's arm and tried in vain to pull him into the +vacant place. He stood there lost while she whispered. Suddenly he bent +and whispered back. They had done too much whispering in these last days +for that to strike any one as specially strange. What struck Newcomb was +the effect on Miss Greta of whatever it was Ashmole had said. + +On the face that had met with brazen defiance the news of a German +defeat, was stamped something more than consternation. Ashmole's own +nerves were not so shaken, but he saw that. + +"It's all right," he said in the act of turning from her; "they won't +get us. The lights are all out." + +"Lights out, you say!" Greta had risen. + +"Every port covered," Ashmole muttered over his shoulder. + +"Fools! They must put the lights on. Do you hear? Instantly!" She +clutched her chair back. "_This_ isn't the boat they want--" + +Nan had risen, too. But that was because she saw Julian at the door of +the saloon. Without a word he held up his hand. Equally without sound, +she slipped away from the table and went toward the waiting figure. As +she reached the door, a dull sound came, with a long shuddering. It +passed through the ship from end to end. Instead of the echo of that +detonation setting the whole place instantly in motion, it had the +effect of stilling for those first seconds such motion as had been. +Several hundred tongues ceased wagging. Forks and spoons remained, +arrested, half-way to people's mouths. The waiters stood, dish-covers in +their hands, or bottles lifted to fill glass. The very engines slowed to +listen. + +Even after the general movement began in the saloon, it was quiet +movement and curiously undramatic; no crying out, no mad rush for the +deck. + +Some people looked about as if for information. Others tried to smile. + +"It's come," said the congressman. + +"What--_what_ has come?" demanded Lady Neave through the rising hum. + +Out of all the growing murmur and movement Newcomb heard Greta's tense +whisper: "_That_--a torpedo?" + + * * * * * + +The captain's order traveled with a superhuman quickness: + +"Life-belts first! Women and children to the boats!" + +"Plenty of time for everybody to get a life-belt," was another form that +ran from mouth to mouth. Whether that insistence calmed the people, +certainly it was a strangely well-behaved company that made its way, in +spite of the ship's increasing list to starboard, along corridors and up +companionways. Scarcely a breach in the general self-control till, on +the lifeboat-deck, parties were broken up, and all men told to stand +back. Though the great majority accepted the order in silence, it broke +the courage of some among the women. Certain men tried persuasion. There +were dumb partings; there was agonized resistance. Two or three +evidently meant to stand out to the bitter end against being saved, or +lost, apart from their men-folk. For a minute the morale of the crowd +was in grave danger. A young wife's recurrent sob: "I can't! I can't!" +rose to wildness with, "They'll have to kill me first!" + +Newcomb, looking vainly about for Nan Ellis, saw a different face. Oh, +yes, it belonged to that voice he had been hearing under all the rest, +patient, gentle, tireless--the voice saying now in its foreign-sounding +English "It is for your husband's safety that you go first." More than +the words, the motherly kindness on the blunt-featured face of the old +German lady, prevailed upon the distracted girl. She let go her +husband's arm and clung to Mrs. Mohrenheim. + +Newcomb saw now that it was Mrs. Mohrenheim who was helping the ship's +officers to marshal and send forward the women and children to those who +had charge of the boats. It looked as if the task would have been too +much for the officers but for Mrs. Mohrenheim. An extraordinary vigor, +an exalted persuasiveness, had transformed the heavy figure and the +homely face. Something she had given no hint of during the voyage came +out of hiding and "took charge." + +In spite of the increased listing of the ship, through all his own +excitement and personal fear, which Newcomb afterwards confessed, his +habit of mechanical mental registry kept him vividly aware of what went +on within his range. + +Already, while Mrs. Mohrenheim was still dealing with that first and +most unwilling of the young wives, Newcomb had seen Miss Greta pass. It +hadn't taken her long to fling on a serge skirt and her fur-lined +ulster. Above the life-belt fastened round her bulky figure was a brown +canvas ruck-sack hoisted high against her shoulder-blades. She was +fastening the buckles as she hastened toward her appointed boat, put a +little out of her stride by the ever-stronger list to starboard. All the +same, Miss Greta, beyond a doubt, would be among the first, Newcomb told +himself, to take her appointed place, and hers would be the first boat +launched. + +"You will carry the child for this lady?" + +Mrs. Mohrenheim had thrust a baby into Newcomb's arms. + +"They say it's this way--this way!" The baby's mother, holding a little +boy by the hand, hurried the child and Newcomb up the deck. The barrier +of officers, stewards, and crew opened to let them through. + +Yes, Miss Greta was already in the boat. The woman with the little boy +was helped in, and Newcomb handed over the baby. The men at the pulleys +began to lower the boat. Miss Greta was calmly tying a motor-veil round +her cap. + +Up on the bridge the captain, against a star-strewn sky, calling down +orders, gave an impression of such tragic and awful loneliness that +Newcomb was aware of a relief at seeing him joined by another figure. +The two stood speaking while you might count seven or eight; then the +captain pulled off his coat and exchanged with the captain of the watch. +The captain of the watch came running down, putting on his chief's coat. +He took charge of the next boat that was being lowered. That was the +boat that tilted and hung for some seconds over the water at an angle of +forty-five degrees. The angle increased to the perpendicular, and the +boat whirled round, dropping the people into the oily water. The calm +night air struck icily on Newcomb's sweat-beaded forehead. A horror of +violent death had pierced the numbness that followed on his first panic. +On the way back to the diminishing crowd of women he peered into men's +faces. + +"Do they realize?" he kept repeating to himself. + +"Where were you when it struck us?" he heard some one ask an officer. + +"Chart-room," was the curt reply. + +Another voice as Newcomb passed said: "Not the periscope; but I saw the +shark-fin wake of the torpedo." + +Newcomb walked with difficulty, like a drunken man; it was this damned +list. The most violent tossing in a hurricane was preferable. You'd have +the plunging dive and recovery, which had something gallant in it, +almost playful, like a giant gamboling. But this persistent violation of +equilibrium got on a man's nerve. + +"The lights have gone out on the starboard side," some one said. + +Newcomb pulled out his watch. Stopped! He held it to his ear. No, it was +going. And all this had happened in those few beggarly moments! + +"What's that yelling about?" he asked irritably of a couple of men who, +half-doubled, came up the slant by the wireless-room passage. + +"Boat on the other side--smashed like an egg-shell against the hull." + +People were drowning on both sides of the sinking ship. + +"It's often safest on board," someone said. + +"Yes; you stick to the ship." + +There was now a dense crowd of men round the companionway. All but a +handful of women had been distributed to the boats, but the handful kept +on being renewed. Newcomb saw why. Grant and Miss Ellis, among others, +were bringing up the people who remained over, in the second and third +class. And among these huddled groups still the squat figure and the +beautiful-ugly face of old Mrs. Mohrenheim moved, consoling, +heartening. + +"Yes, he will come after," she said. "Surely you will think about your +children." More than once she had taken her text from a bystander's +face. "Look at him, poor man! He can save himself if he has not you to +think about. You would not risk his life? No, no. _Komm_, then, _komm_." +The woman was passed along. + +The mere getting to the boats was a trial of courage. Newcomb himself +had no love of the horrible chute that now pitched sharply down to that +dark, oily glitter that was the sea, but he offered to convoy the +late-comers wherever a boat might be. + +"No, you two." Mrs. Mohrenheim summoned Grant and Nan Ellis. Slowly they +made their way forward with the little group of clinging children and +bewildered women. Some crawled on hands and knees up the steep acclivity +to where a boat swung from the davits. An officer passed the groups +without stopping. He came hurrying, sliding, half squatting, with one +leg stretched slanting down, the other crooked up, with the knee turned +sharply out. + +"You, now," he said to Mrs. Mohrenheim as he rose to his full height +beside her. + +"There are two ladies more." She pushed them forward. + +The officer steadied them as they passed, and turned again to Mrs. +Mohrenheim. + +"_You._" + +"There are those by the door; one is young." She turned unsteadily. + +The officer clutched her. "I tell you,"--Newcomb barely caught the +words--"it's now or never. _There aren't boats enough!_" + +"I know," said Mrs. Mohrenheim. + +She drew back and stretched out a hand to a muffled figure holding to a +stanchion above where she stood. It was Professor Mohrenheim. Newcomb +realized now that the figure had been there from the first. + +"We have been together for forty years," the old woman said. "Too long +to be parted now." Her husband bent down and took her hand. Now he had +drawn her up beside him. + +A man with bare feet and a blanket round him rushed on deck as word +came, blown along from group to group, "The captain says every one +for'ard, and each for himself." + +Down by the bridge they were launching a collapsible raft. + +The last Newcomb, or any one, saw of the Mohrenheims, they were standing +together. They held to each other and to the stanchion. + + * * * * * + +Grant followed the girl down the swinging ladder to the raft. + +Some one was crying: + +"Get away! Pull out! For God's sake, get away!" Another, equally +unrecognizable in the dimness, called out: + +"She's going down! We'll be drawn in!" + +As they pushed off, they saw the electric lights on the _Leyden_ go out +one by one. + +Of the people on the raft more than one watched the death-throes of the +ship with wet eyes, as though she were something sentient, human. Her +angle of subsidence had changed sharply. The bow sank, leaving the stern +nearly upright. Her mast was gone. For an instant her funnel lay along +the water, and then with a dull roar as of the engines breaking loose +and crashing down to the bottom, the rest of the _Leyden_ sank out of +sight. + +The end of the great ship had come with a horrible quietness, in +contrast to the cries of men struggling for their lives in the wash +among the wreckage. + +The captain had gone down with the ship. When those in charge of the +raft heard that some one had seen him jump clear, they sent up a rocket. +By that addition to the starlight, for a few instants a single, +half-empty lifeboat could be seen rocking violently on the swell. +Several men were clinging to the gunwale. As raft and boat were swept +nearer, the officer in charge of the raft raised a shout. He had +recognized the captain climbing into the boat, and hauling up after him +the limp body of one of his companions. + +The captain's first care, when he came alongside, was to relieve the +congestion on the raft. He ordered the chief engineer to transfer eight +or ten. The chief engineer remembered his helpers. Grant and Newcomb +were told off. Yes, the captain said, they must bring the only woman +into the lifeboat. + +When the transference had been effected, another rocket was sent up in +order that the surviving boats might come together. + +"Look!" The girl grasped Grant's arm. + +The captain, too, turned his head. + +"By God!" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +The submarine had risen and stood away to southward. So intent had the +occupants of the lifeboat been to discover some sign of their companions +that the discovery of themselves by the submarine flash came with a +shock of surprise. In the light of that pale ray, which had picked them +out of the darkness, they saw in that first moment no more than one +another's faces--a memory to last them all their days. + +"They're hailing us," the captain said with bitter mouth. + +"_Who_ is hailing us?" The idea of rescue was still in the forefront of +his mind. + +"Submarine." + +How the captain knew, Newcomb had no idea. But certainly the +insignificant, low-pitched shadow--obscure mother of the light-ray ... +she was moving! And she was moving in the direction of the _Leyden's_ +grave. + +A voice came from her at last, uttering not the German they thought to +hear, but words yet more unfamiliar. + +"He says," interrupted the Dutch captain, "we're to come 'longside." + +"Shall we?" The chief engineer still could conceive orders as coming +only from the autocrat of the ship at the bottom of the sea. + +"No choice." The captain's voice sank lower on an oath. He leaned +forward, and conferred with the men at the bow. Newcomb had noticed that +the captain still wore the coat of the captain of the watch, and he saw +now that when the grizzled head that had been bent in conference with +the engineer, was lifted, it wore a landsman's cap--a checked +deerstalker. + +Clearly the engineer had been placed in command of this little +expedition over the intervening blackness to learn their fate--a +blackness that seemed to open to the long ray of the flash-light. To the +unnautical mind, the shortened ray seemed to draw the lifeboat in and +in, till the conning-tower stood clear to the straining eye; in and in, +till to the right of the main origin of light dim figures took shape; in +and in, till just before the oarsmen had brought the lifeboat alongside +the shelving body, topped with its low deck, suddenly the light ray was +extinguished. Lifeboat and submarine swung an instant in an equal +blackness. Out of it a voice, again in those strange accents. No answer +till an English tongue spoke from the lifeboat, "We can understand a +little German." + +And then, just as eyes were beginning to grow accustomed to the dark, +which, after all, was darkness only by comparison, the compact figure +standing out on the conning-tower against the star-sown sky turned on +the light of an electric torch he held in his hand. He trailed the +sudden radiance along the lifeboat, raking her fore and aft. The light +lingered an instant at the stern. But the question he asked was: "Name +of your ship?" + +He was told. + +"Dutch?" + +Holland-American, she was. + +"Tonnage?" + +"That was given, too." + +"Are you the captain?" + +"No. Chief Engineer Van Zandt." + +An order was issued in German, and the interrogatory went on: + +"Where _is_ the captain?" + +"Hard to say," some one answered gruffly. + +"He's where a British captain can usually be found," said another. + +"In these days that 'usually' means at the bottom," retorted the +commander of the submarine. "Have you got any papers?" + +"_Papers?_" + +"Yes, yes, _Dummheit_; where are the ship's papers?" + +"We'd better ask you," retorted a voice at the stern. + +"You'd better keep the tongue civil!" came sharply back, with the first +betrayal of flaw in the perfect English. + +Two figures coming up on the conning-tower brought with them the +diffused light of some open hatchway as they took their stand behind the +commander. He showed clearly now, a firm, square-built presence, a +beardless round face above the muffler. He said something over his +shoulder, and one of the two men just come up, stepped briskly to the +commander's side. During those few seconds it seemed mere chance that +the torch still lit up the stern of the lifeboat--lit the small, white +face with its parted lips and shining eyes, a face so destitute of fear, +so charged with sheer burning curiosity, that any sane person might be +forgiven for staring hard at what could only be a crass incapacity on a +girl's part to comprehend the situation. + +"How many boats did you launch?" the brusk voice went on with the +catechism. + +The engineer decided to say eight. + +"That all? Why didn't you launch more?" + +"No time." + +"No _time_! That shows you're lying." He turned again and conferred with +the little group behind him. + +"_Ja, ja--auch meine Meinung._" He wheeled round. "All right," he +called out; "shove off!" + +Nobody in the lifeboat moved. + +Grant's voice was heard for the first time after the second of stark +silence: + +"What are you going to do with the people in this boat?" + +"Finished with you. Shove off!" + +That loosed tongues. The boat was full of angry voices. Grant's alone, +steady, quiet, but heard above them all, said: + +"It's a mistake, then?--Wait a moment!"--he rose and steadied himself in +the gentle swell--"I say!--it's a mistake, then, that we're a hundred +miles from land?" + +"Not much mistake about _that_," the voice came back. + +"Are we to wait while you overhaul the other boats?" + +"Why should you wait?" + +"You mean to round the others up and give us a tow?" + +"Oh, do I?" + +Again the commander repeated that action of his, tilting the torch so as +to show up the pale oval with the eager eyes. + +Newcomb readily owned afterward that the sharp collision of emotions in +those minutes during the interview put out of the question any sober +thinking or coordination of impressions. All that came later. But in the +flux of feeling he knew even at the time that his peculiar loathing of +the man wasn't altogether due to the devilish work he had finished, or +fear of what was yet to come. Even in the thick of shifting dreads and +hates Newcomb knew that moment by moment, ever since the colloquy began +in the background of his torn mind, a consciousness was shaping which +told him that this man would have cut the parting shorter but for some +special stimulation of his contemptuous interest in the lifeboat. And to +what could such stimulation be due but to the spectacle (Newcomb +admitted its crowning strangeness) of the way in which one person in the +boat was taking what most would count a catastrophe to shake the soul. + +Did the fact of the absence of hatred in the face of the only woman in +the boat account for the something which Newcomb had little expected to +find in a German U-boat captain--that slight tendency to attitudinize in +the midst of his grim business, to assume the "gallant commander" air, +as no man does in exactly the same way for his fellowmen. This ghastly +suggestion of flirtatiousness, following hard as it did on the heels of +murder, and making its obscure demand over the very grave of the sunken +ship, stirred Newcomb to a pitch of fury hardly sane. And how the +thought flashed through him--how was Grant taking this girl's mockery of +him, mockery of all her protectors, of decency itself? And behold Grant +was "taking it"--this thing done on the floor of ocean--as a man may +whose head is among the stars. Poor devil! he didn't even see it, didn't +even sense what the commander's insolent use of the torch showed in that +circumscribed field of intense light--the girl's eyes still wide and +curious. + +Instead of natural loathing, of every form of moral condemnation, she +was staring at the submarine commander with breathless interest, with an +eagerness that might flatter any man alive. + +Grant had made his way down the lifeboat, holding to this one's +shoulder, steadying himself by that one's arm, his face drawn with +anxiety, but for all that a figure of hope, of conciliation. + +"I say," he called out, "we haven't got any provisions in this boat, and +we're--you know how far we are from land." + +"Bad management," commented the German, his eyes slipping past Grant +again to the face at the stern. + +"Even if it is bad management, you're not going to abandon eighteen +fellow-beings in an open boat in mid-Atlantic, not _civilians_, to die +of starvation?" + +That didn't seem to deserve an answer. + +"Who's in charge of your boat?" was the curt demand. + +Grant hesitated. + +"I am," answered Van Zandt. + +"Well, don't you know how to shove off when you're told to?" + +"Stop!" Julian flung up an arm. "It's an impossible barbarity! Look!" He +swung round. "You haven't seen--there's a lady in the boat!" + +"Oh, is there?" The flash of white teeth showed in that diffused light +spreading upward from the hatch. "The lady has only herself to blame." + +"To blame? How is she to blame?" + +"She disobeys the order." + +"What order?" Grant couldn't yet see he had nothing to hope from the +man. "You _can't_ abandon us," he hurried on, "not a woman, anyway, to +the torture of slow starvation." + +"I'm not sure that I can." The captain's hand had gone up as though to +stroke the absent mustache. When the hand came down, it showed his teeth +again as he half turned toward the men behind him. + +At those words, "I'm not sure that I can," the reaction in the lifeboat +was so great that, with the snapping of the tension, Grant had wavered +dizzily, and Nan sprang up with a cry--a cry that Newcomb took for +relief till he saw her gesture toward Julian Grant. But nearer hands +laid hold on him as he called out in hoarse triumph, "What did I tell +you fellows!" and fell into the place they made for him. The commander +turned from some humorous interchange with his officers. + +"Yes, it's a fact, I can't bring myself to abandon the lady." He took up +that position again near the edge of the conning-tower. With heels +together he made a sharp inclination from the hips. "I have a cabin +below, not luxurious, but more comfortable than--" he broke off with a +curt gesture. "I place it at the lady's disposal." + +[Illustration: "I have a cabin below. I place it at the lady's +disposal"] + +On the lifeboat for those first seconds a silence of petrification +reigned. On the submarine sounded voices--voices which hadn't been heard +before. For one sick instant Newcomb tried to fit those sounds to +expostulation, to revolt. And then hope died, transfixed by laughter. + +But the commander himself was grave, almost decorous. + +"Well, what do you say?" He was looking straight at the girl. "You must +make up your mind quickly. I've wasted too much time already." + +"Far too much," burst from a man's throat down below. + +"Unless," the German went on calmly--"unless, as seems probable, the +lady hasn't understood." + +No wonder that he so interpreted the lady's face, for in the +circumscribed field of intense light her eyes showed wide to an +incredible vision. "It is true what your own people have told you," he +went on. "To stay where you are means death." + +She spoke directly to him for the first time. + +"And these--these others!" + +"The fate of men in war," said the commander. "There is no need for you +to share it." + +Only the rushing sound of the water for a breath's interval till she +gave him the measure of her incorrigible hope. "You'll save the others, +too!" + +He checked his impatient gesture to demand: "You think they won't let +you come--alone!" No wonder he persisted, for she was looking at him +still with that excited hopefulness, though dashed now with +bewilderment, her brows drawn together as though she were trying with +all her might and main, in spite of dazzle and glare, to make out +something dim and far and inconceivably precious--nothing less than an +ultimate fate in man. + +"I give you my word," he called out, "nobody shall prevent you." + +"Yes, somebody will!" Julian shouted. + +Twice fifteen hands were ready to make the assurance good. Four of them +were laid to the oars. It was all over while you'd count half a dozen, +but out of those flying seconds of half-paralyzed effort Newcomb kept +the memory of a lifeboat that seemed to share the mortal agitations of +her crew; a boat that for an instant--an eternity--swung under unequal +oar-strokes in an oily glitter that swelled up black, polished, till it +shut out the horizon stars. + +As though no man had stirred, the _Leyden_ captain was roaring: "What +are you about? _Shove off!_" His voice thickened to incoherent cursing +even before a couple of boat-hook heads crashed down on the gunwale and +hauled the boat sharply back against the body of the submarine. + +"Are you mad?" It wasn't lost on any one in the lifeboat that the +German's free hand had found his pistol as he added: "Isn't there sense +enough among you to know you're helpless? You've only the girl to thank +that I don't ram you to hell." A word over his shoulder sent two of the +crew down through that faint gush of light to the deck. "I'm sending for +you." + +"_Julian!_" After the guttural male voice, the high childish cry seemed +to tear the quivering night in two. + +Strangely it was answered. The pacifist Julian turned and flung himself +upon the man at his side. He seemed to grapple insanely with the +_Leyden_ captain, till something in his keeping was torn out of his +hand. Over their heads a shot rang out. Two sailors, about to board the +lifeboat, hesitated, turned and vanished. + +Newcomb was for the moment so sure it was the U-boat commander who had +fired that his next impression was of a thing purely fantastic; for the +figure up there against the stars, that figure inclined in a mockery of +courtesy to Nan Ellis, jumped to attention; held the attitude rigidly an +instant, and then, as though in pride of pose he had overreached +himself, fell back. Men sprang to catch him and darkness closed round +the dropped torch. + +Out of the half-crazed confusion that followed, it was hard afterward to +recall anything with both certainty and distinctness except the +captain's rough order to Julian, "Here, give it back!" and a pistol +changed hands. Newcomb had his share in wrenching the boat-hooks from +their hold and in the feverish self-defeating activity of the oarsmen. + +Out of the semi-darkness on the submarine torches spouted light. Out of +the turmoil on conning-tower and deck, cries of fury crystallized to a +single sentence repeated in German by a dozen tongues, "Axes! Axes! +Stave her in!" + +The first lieutenant gesticulated madly. + +"Stop rowing _instantly_, or I fire!" + +"Row! Row hard! For God's sake," Grant's voice prayed, "give me an oar!" + +No one heeded; the rowers rowed for their lives. Two revolver-shots rang +out, and the chief engineer rowed no more. + +Instead of pursuing, the submarine had darted away. She was swinging +half round a circle; she was, God in heaven! what now? She was heading +this way again, coming at full speed. + +Newcomb brought his eyes back to the faces nearest him. They showed him +only that his own sick sense of helplessness was shared, and shared the +remembrance of that threat, but for the girl. To ram the lifeboat? As +easy as for a child to stick the end of a spoon through the breakfast +egg. + +On she came; you heard the mutter of her engines. He couldn't bring +himself to look at the girl. For fear of meeting her eyes with knowledge +in them at last Newcomb found himself turning dizzily away from all +those stricken faces. In the teeth of death he remembered staring round +the black half-circle of the heavens. + +The very cloud-wrack was seized by fear ... it ran scudding away from +the scene. It left naked the shivering stars. Two little sounds alone in +all that silence: a sobbing of water against the sides of the boat; and +that other, the low mutter of the oncoming doom. + +In that final rush, the blackness in which the submarine moved, curled +up and fell away from her bow like black earth on either side of a +ploughshare--now like earth snow powdered. + +That was the last thing Newcomb remembered--of the curling white lip of +the bow wave as the engine of death came rushing at the lifeboat. That +and voices in the extremity of horror that cried: "Jump! Jump!" + +Those who didn't were not seen again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +So long it takes to tell these things. So brief a time to happen. In +eighteen seconds the submarine had gone a thousand yards, and men +struggling in her wake had crowded a lifetime into a span. + +Horrible as were the cries of the drowning, Newcomb's crowning fear was +that they would cease. He clung to his broken grating, and strained his +eyes in the changing light. Off there to left of him--not _again_ the +submarine! She had checked her course and swung round. As quickly as she +had shot away after her murderous work was done, here, describing a +half-circle, she was rushing back. + +Almost at the instant of recognition of the changed course there, only a +few yards off, a head, two heads, showed above the water. Newcomb +remembered crying out a warning, "She's coming back!" as the swift +seconds brought the swifter U-boat and the sound of renewed firing +nearer. Newcomb could see the figure of the commander jumping about +grotesquely on the narrow platform of the conning-tower, and heard him +calling down to the armed sailors on the deck. And all the while the +commander himself kept firing, like a madman, down on the water at every +head he saw. Hit or miss and on to the next. As the submarine raced by, +he shot even the bits of wreckage; he shot the shadows. "Ha! da ist +eins. Und da--siehst du? Noch eins--!" + +Meanwhile the torch-lights and the flash, sweeping again the farther +reaches, lighted fiercely whatever they played on, and thus the +intervening lanes of blackness between the lighted ridges of the waves +offered momentary asylum. Up one of these dim stretches Newcomb trod +water, clinging to his fragment of grating. + +How long after he never knew before that moment when he sighted the +moving shadow that turned into a lifeboat. A man clung to the gunwale +with one hand, and with the other helped hands outstretched from the +boat to draw some one on board. + +"There is no r-r-room!" a voice was crying. In the midst of the +passionate altercation between the officer in charge and a woman in the +boat, Grant and Newcomb were hauled in and given rum. + +At intervals, with his flash, the officer in charge swept the +circumambient shadow. Though Newcomb was beginning to revive, he +couldn't face that void. He turned to the human presences nearest him. +At his side was a man the officer called Gillow, thick-set, ruddy, with +close black beard and lively eyes. Among those last confused +recollections on board the _Leyden_ had been this fellow's running up on +deck barefoot and in his underclothes. He sat now in somebody's +overcoat, with a blanket muffled about his legs and feet. A child +somewhere behind began to cry. + +Newcomb turned to look back. The exploring light picked out a head in a +close-fitting cap tied well down with a heavy veil that left the face +uncovered. For an instant Newcomb met the challenging eyes of Greta. + +In the bottom of the boat, dead or unconscious, lay the girl, Nan +Ellis. + +The night wore on, with low-voiced tales of what they had been through. +Engineer Gillow told how, in the confusion of the launching, lifeboat +No. 11, originally in charge of the officer of the watch, had collided +with two other boats. All three were damaged, No. 11 so seriously as to +be virtually useless. In the end No. 11 wasn't needed, was Gillow's +terse summary of what followed. It hadn't been possible to save +everybody; they had done their best. There was a poor devil there in the +bow, a naked stoker they had picked up. He'd had his clothes burned off +by the fire in the engine-room. Assistant-Engineer Gillow himself had as +narrow an escape as any; he'd been asleep while the torpedoed ship was +sinking. A rush of sea water had washed him out of his bunk barely in +time, as he put it, to catch the last boat. Now he was going to catch +forty winks. He folded his short arms with an air of resolution, and +dropped his beard into the turned-up collar of the borrowed coat. In two +or three minutes he slept. The rest sat waiting for the day. + +That dawning, so passionately longed for, showed no hint of man or of +his work on all the plain of ocean, not so much as a shattered thwart. + +On the lifeboat itself the gray, sun-shrouded morning showed a company +of eight men, counting Newcomb, Grant, and the stoker; seven women; four +children, fretful from chill and hunger; and a half-grown cabin-boy. The +second officer, a wiry, hard-bitten Welshman, was staring through his +binoculars north, south, east, west. Hardly would he persuade himself to +put the glass down when he would grip hold of it again. Up it would go +to eyes that had gleamed an instant with some new, some always futile +hope. + +The naked stoker had been partly clothed. He lay in a stupor of +exhaustion under damp coats and sodden canvas. The gray daylight showed +Julian Grant with feverish eyes, and dry lips that said, "Nan's +sleeping, too." She shared the tarpaulin which had been spread in the +first place for the stoker and two children. Grant and two women, a +stewardess and a passenger with a baby, occupied the seat facing the +captain and the bow, facing that still figure of Nan Ellis. Miss Greta, +as the morning showed, was the only woman not disheveled. Whether in the +collision she had been wet at all, she looked dry now, and still +rigorously buttoned up, tied down, and belted in. She was still wearing +the small flat Ruech-Sak, lying high on her high shoulders, and she kept +her eyes on the second officer; especially when, after he had shut his +binocular case with a snap, he began to serve out rations of biscuit and +water. + +A child began to wail. "I can't keep him warm," said the mother. Her +face was wet. + +After consultation with Engineer Gillow, the second officer decided it +was no use waiting for the rescue ship. He called for rowers. He called +for something white for a flag of distress. + +A man offered a gray sweater for the crying child on condition the +mother should take off its white frock and let that be flown as a +signal. The mother wanted to take the sweater and keep the white frock, +too. With difficulty she was persuaded to the exchange. + +Grant had roused Nan Ellis to take her share of the biscuit and water +ration. She opened heavy eyes, ate, drank, and slept again the profound +sleep of exhaustion. + +Newcomb and Grant had been among the first to take each his turn at the +oars. They kept it up in shifts all the windless day, and all day long +the baby's frock signaled the distress which there seemed no eye on all +the globe to heed. + +Toward evening the stoker grew delirious. Out of the wrappings that +concealed him he lifted a huge head, bristling with coarse, red hair. + +"I know," he shouted in a Devon accent--"suffocated in the bunkers! +That's it; yes, suffocated!" The giant choked and began to thrash about. + +"Can't have that!" called out the second officer. "Quiet there!" The +stern voice seemed to bring the man to himself for a minute. At the +first sign of disturbance Newcomb had turned with an impulse to reassure +Nan Ellis; but she slept on. + +The eyes of the second officer came back once more from that endless +interrogation of the ocean. "Boat won't stand much," he said in an +undertone. "Mended one leak." + +Down at his feet the red-haired giant was stirring again. He heaved, he +cursed at some obstruction there under the canvas. He sat up and pulled +out a block and tackle; and with it he fell to hammering at a stay. + +"Open the hatch..." he shouted a string of foul language. + +Nan Ellis started up, and turned with horror to face the incredible +apparition. + +"Lash him down," ordered the second officer, calmly. + +It was a horrible performance. The girl hid her eyes till Grant had put +her in his own place, but facing the other way, while he helped the +engineer, the cabin-boy, and Newcomb to overpower the man. The girl sat +crouched at Greta's side, each looking a different way. In an interval +in his grim business Newcomb watched for the moment of recognition +between the two, a moment strangely long delayed. Presently it dawned +upon him that each was intimately aware of the other's presence and that +neither meant to make a sign. + +In the little breeze that at last was springing up the second officer, +with help of Gillow and the cabin-boy, was getting up the sail. For the +space of a good hour the boat sped over the water. At dusk the wind +freshened, the sail was reefed down for the night under a sky all nimbus +near the horizon, the zenith full of drab-colored cumulus moving +sullenly northeast. + +"It's below freezing all right," some one said. + +Another spoke of the effect of icebergs drifting down. + +"It's the time of year that happens." + +"I wish it would freeze the stoker's tongue," said the cabin-boy. + +An hour went by, longer than the longest day. Newcomb was dropping into +a painful doze when something brought him back to a yet more painful +consciousness. What was it? He was too much reduced to take the smallest +initiative in finding out. He sat huddled, staring at the moon risen +well above the nimbus and for the moment riding clear even of the +scattered cumulus. Engineer Gillow had the watch. The second officer sat +in the bow, with rigid back and open eyes. The stoker moaned. Every one +else slept or seemed to sleep. No, not the two women sitting together +with eyes averted. + +"I didn't know it was _you_, Nan," he heard Greta whisper. + +"You knew it was somebody," came the answer at last. + +"All I could think of is, he's waiting for me! Ernst! He's escaped. I +_dare_ not die while Ernst needs me." + +The girl made no sound. + +"Can't you understand what it means to me that he should say, 'For the +sake of everything we care for, I must come and help him!' How could I +think that anybody else's life mattered--when Ernst is waiting for me!" + +"Waiting for you.... Where?" + +"Oh, I shall find him--And nobody else will! 'It all depends on you, +Greta'; that's what he says. He'll see that I'm safe, he says,' _and +happy_!' For the first time he speaks of marriage. He _needs_ me!" she +triumphed. + +"One last great service is laid upon us, then Buenos Aires--Ernst and +I." + +The stoker's moaning mounted to a horrible, hoarse yell. It waked the +sleeping, half-numb children. They, too, screamed with fright and +misery. So the hours wore on, with appeals for water, with weeping and +with worse. Once the stoker wrenched himself free. They bound him again. +That made him more violent than before. All the rest of the night he +raved. In the morning he was gone. No one asked a question. + +The sail went up early that day, though the sea looked threatening and +the wind was squally. Within the hour all canvas had to be furled and +the sea-anchor streamed. The lamentable figures in the boat huddled +closer. Of Greta you could hardly see a distinguishing sign, so was she +muffled and surrounded. The seas rose higher and the wash came flooding +in. + +"Just as well they should think we get it over the gunwale," the second +officer said to Newcomb. "Some of the damned rivets must have got +strained." + +The passengers began to crowd up, half toward the bow, half at the +stern. Amidships was awash. + +The hail turned to sleet, and the sleet to fine rain. In the stark +misery of it the longing grew almost irresistible to jump overboard and +end it all. More than one of that tragic company thought again and +again: "I've come to the end. I can bear no more," not knowing yet the +awful power of the flesh to endure and keep the soul imprisoned. + +But the chance-made captain knew. "A hand here!" he ordered, and Newcomb +helped the engineer to spread the boat-cover over the people, and to do +it in spite of the icy wind that tore the freezing canvas out of one's +grasp and seemed along with it to tear out one's finger-nails; failing +that, to wrench one's half-frozen fingers out of their sockets. Yet at +last the thing was spread and fastened. There was no one who didn't +welcome it, and none to whom, as shelter, it wasn't a mock. Some craned +out and held the canvas so as to catch the rain. There was enough to +sting, enough to chill the marrow, but not enough to drink; yet furred +and feverish tongues were pressed against the moistened canvas. + +Toward evening the appeals for water became demands. One of the women, a +thin, febrile creature with insane eyes, grew violent. For more than one +the early stages of hushed despair had passed. Few were able to sit +still. They came out from under cover with faces that made the heart +shrink. They climbed about the boat in the failing light, moaning, +threatening. Among the worst was the cabin-boy. It was clear he was +light-headed. + +"You've been drinking sea-water," the captain arraigned him, fiercely. + +The boy denied the charge, whimpering. + +"I think, sir," the engineer interrupted, "the sea-anchor's gone." The +captain lashed two oars together and made another. In the early darkness +the wind freshened, drenching the boat with spray. + +Greta had joined in the bailing. She came up out of the stern like some +hibernating brown animal of the bursa family. She worked well. + +They bailed in shifts, hour by hour. The men bailed all night long. They +bailed till the buckets and pannikins fell out of their swollen hands. +In the small hours of morning Nan Ellis had crawled to the seat by +Grant. + +Another eternity went by. Slow daylight battled long with the mists of +night and fog. The girl sat with her arms round the rigid figure of +Julian Grant; but for that he would have slipped away like that +other--Did any one know besides Newcomb of the gray head lying face +downward in the wash that was sucking and slapping to and fro in the +bottom of the boat? + +Newcomb himself lost all sense of time in those intervals of partial +unconsciousness too full of suffering to deserve the name of sleep, but +he recollected the timbre of the voice that called out something +inarticulate in German just before Gillow shouted, "Light! a light!" + +And there it was, far away to eastward, infinitesimal, but steady, a +gleam. At first it looked as if it might be the morning star shining +through the breaking fog-veil, red like Mars. Then, changing like only +man-made brightness, the light showed green. + +The excitement among those who still were conscious bore its touch of +mania. Where the captain's stern call to order might have failed, the +question, "Who knows if it isn't a submarine?" sobered the most hopeful. + +"Whatever it is, it's coming nearer!" Nan Ellis cried the news at +Julian's irresponsive ear. Out of the cage of despair her flagging voice +soared in a rapture of recovered faith: "Light, Julian! A light!" + +And now there stood out against the streak of dawn the hull and funnels +of a steamer. All eyes watched that phantom ship as though for an +instant to lose sight of her would be tantamount to letting her go to +the bottom. They held her to her holy purpose by that thread of vision, +the optic nerve. And to those passionately watchful eyes the course of +the steamer had seemed to lie in a dead reckoning right across the +lifeboat. She _couldn't_ miss them. Suddenly her course diverged; she +was bearing to the west! Newcomb saw the captain's hand shake as he +lighted a signal, his only and most precious Coston Light. Ah, she got +that! Another feeble cry went up from the lifeboat, for the steamer +slackened speed, she turned. She had altered her course for fear of +running the lifeboat down. Now perhaps she could see-- + +Anyway, eyes in the lifeboat could see--the steamer sheering off to +southward. The captain and the engineer shot off their pistols. Others +in the boat, not too far gone, screamed like creatures on the rack. It +wasn't tragic so much as horrible. They howled like animals. + +The ship went on. She faded. She was gone. + +"They're afraid it's a trap," said the engineer. "You didn't know it, +but we're a decoy-boat, ha, ha! Signals of distress? Ha! ha! Too thin. +We're a submarine. Didn't you know?" + +More than men and boats had been sacrificed in the war. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Napier was not yet out of the hospital when the cable came, telling the +date of Julian's sailing from New York and that Nan was returning by the +same ship. + +Nine days after, Napier sat in his sister's London house, raging +feverishly at his slow convalescence, which wasn't in reality slow at +all. To him, there, caught, as he said, "by the foot, like a rabbit in a +trap," came the awful news--they still cried these things in streets--of +the torpedoing of the _Leyden_. + +He sent his man Day to Liverpool that evening to give help or, at the +worst, to send back instant news. The knowledge that Sir James and Lady +Grant had taken the first train on the same errand was a thought to lean +on. + +Yet those next days of waiting! They were followed by the news, +wirelessed from the SS. _Clonmel_, which told of falling in with a +handful of _Leyden_ survivors among a boatful of dead. "Identities not +established," it announced. That meant people too injured or too +delirious to tell their names; people rescued too late, people dying. + +Who could sit and wait in London? Not Napier. Within two hours of a +stormy interview with his surgeon Napier was on his way. + +Leaning on his crutches, he stood in the crowd on the Liverpool wharf. +Among the faces all about him, fear-darkened, hope-lit, tear-stained, or +merely curious, one of them caught Napier's eye for its look of +detachment. Or was it for something familiar? The blue eyes crossed his +with no flicker of recognition. But when Napier looked round again, the +man was withdrawing from the line of vision, and to do that was no easy +matter in the crush. Was it Ernst Pforzheim, with his mustache shaved +off? Napier had decided against so far-fetched an assumption before the +incident was forgotten in the wild cheering that broke from the crowd, +and which rose again and again, as the _Clonmel_ steamed up the Mersey +with its tragic remnant. + +There was no glimpse of Julian among those ravaged faces, and no use, +Napier told himself, no earthly use, to look for that other. Yet all the +forces of body and of soul met in the concentration of his scrutiny from +end to end of the slowing ship. + +No, she wasn't there. Napier's right hand tightened on the bar of his +crutch. He leaned an instant against the shoulder of his servant, +feeling the dreaded onset of that dizzy sickness which comes back upon +men who have had a touch of gas. Still, he was master enough of himself +to notice that the captain moved a little as he put up his hand in +recognition of some one on the wharf. Then Napier saw her--or _was_ it +Nan? + +The face, with the scarf wound round it, was like a mask. Lines, +features, the pale _brune_ coloring, were there; but where was Nan? + +A second cheer had gone up from the docks as the _Clonmel_ made fast. +The crowd surged forward, shouting questions about the fate of certain +Liverpool stokers and seamen. The police intervened, and opened a lane +as the first passengers came down the gangway, hatless, unshaven, in +borrowed clothes. Women in the crowd below, crying out names, questions, +had to be held back by main force. "Let the passengers land first!" And +still the cries went up, one sharper than all the rest: "Is Jimmy +O'Brian saved?" + +The pressure was relieved about the gangway when Nan, one of the last to +land, had reached the wharf. She stood with those vacant eyes of hers on +Gavan's crutch instead of on his face. + +"You--wounded!" + +He had not shaped the words, "Where's Julian?" and yet she answered him. +"Julian is dead. The rescue people buried him--at sea." + +Napier tried ineffectually enough to shield her from a man with a +note-book, volleying questions. + +While Napier and his man, with the girl between them, slowly made their +way through the throng, Napier told her she must take over the rooms he +had engaged. + +"You won't be able to travel for a day or two," he said. + +She stopped short at that, and began to look about with those unseeing +eyes. She was "_quite_ able to travel." She "must travel." She was going +to Scotland. + +A chill gripped Gavan's heart. Was she delirious? + +"Anywhere you like when you've had a few days--" + +"A few days? I can't wait a few days. _She_ can't wait--Julian's mother. +I'm going first to her." + +An immense relief swept over him. The mind was there, the faithful, +loyal mind. + +"You needn't go to Scotland. The Grants are behind you, in that crowd, +talking to the captain." + +Vision rose again in the dimmed eyes. A great tenderness lit the still +features as Nan caught sight of the tall, bent old man beside Julian's +mother, and the changed face of the woman. + +When once she had reached them, the last threads that had seemed +precariously to hold her to Napier snapped. Her meeting with the Grants +was very quiet, but evidently it changed the old people's plans in so +far as they had plans. Sir James took Nan on his arm. The policeman, +piloting Lady Grant, led the way out of the crowd within a yard of +Napier. The girl turned to him. + +"Gavan!" + +"Where shall you be?" Napier made a motion to join her. + +"She'll be with us, naturally," said Julian's father, his eyes resting +an instant on Napier. "And you--soon you'll come--" he didn't try to +finish. That "soon" had said enough. The old man could not at the moment +bear even Gavan near his grief. The look in his eyes brought tears to +Napier's as, forlornly, he watched the little group disappear in the +crowd. + +What a world! Would people ever be happy again? + +The reporters, who had got hold of the captain and one of the survivors, +surrounded the pair three and four deep. Their ranks were broken by a +distracted woman with a shawl over her head, strained tight round her +piteous face. + +"Is it here he is, the gentleman who was saved? For the love of God, +sir, did ye see Jimmy O'Brian? I'm his mother." + +Napier leaned more heavily on his servant. + +"We must get out of this," he said. But they couldn't. People who hadn't +found their friends were not to be convinced they weren't on board. +Again and again denied access to the ship, they pressed through the +crowd with cries and questions. They couldn't see the crutch. Napier was +knocked and jostled. The old gas-sickness was heavy on him. He took +refuge on a sea-chest behind a pile of luggage, and sent Day to keep +places in the train. When he lifted his swimming head, struggling still +against that tide of nausea rising to choke him, Napier saw that the +crowd had thinned now to a few groups of last, despairing lingerers. +Even the cries for Jimmy O'Brian had sunk into the same stillness that +wrapped the sailor at the bottom of the sea. A little old man in a +threadbare coat closely buttoned round a meager body went up to the +guard at the foot of the gangway. + +"You are quite sure? The passengers are _all_ off?" + +"Haven't I told you no end o' times? They're _gone_, every man Jack of +'em, and we're hoistin' the gangway." + +The old man walked forlornly away, his threadbare ulster flapping +against his shins. + +"Any idea when the other lady will be coming off?" a foreign-sounding +voice asked on the other side of the luggage. + +"'Other lady'! What other lady?" + +Napier, leaning over, saw something shoved into a grimy fist. The +_Clonmel_ deck-hand had no need to look at the aid to memory. The +faculty of touch had applied the stimulus. "There _was_ another lady," +he said; "but she ain't comin' ashore here. Goin' back with us to +Ireland." + +Napier watched the sailor take the inquirer over to the guard. The guard +proved amenable. In a moment the stranger with the square back had +passed up the gangway. No detectives were with him; he had gone on board +alone. If it wasn't Ernst Pforzheim, it was some mustacheless individual +extremely like him in feature, and as unlike as a seedy bowler, shabby +clothes, and a slouching air could render the smart young gentleman of +Glenfallon Castle. What did it mean? + +The same question seemed to have occurred to a reporter who observed +from a distance this case of flagrant favoritism. He was further +rewarded for his patience by seeing presently the sailor who had been +tipped beckoned by a steward from the top of the gangway. The reporter +came strolling along the now nearly deserted wharf. He coasted gloomily +round the piled-up luggage, looking at the labels. When he had passed +out of Napier's range--suddenly voices! + +Napier shifted his position again. Two men who had given no sign of life +before were being asked some question by the reporter. One of the pair +caught Napier's eye. Singleton! Napier's chilled blood ran swiftly. It +_was_ Ernst, then, who had gone on board! And if he didn't come back, if +he was for escaping to Ireland, Singleton and his companion would search +the ship. Plainly Singleton was trying to get rid of the reporter. +Whatever was afoot here, it was not desirable to have it in the papers. +The secret-service man and his companion, who looked as if he might be a +plain-clothes policeman, turned a cold shoulder on the reporter, and +suddenly fell back in the direction of Napier. Suddenly the reporter +darted out from the shadow of the luggage and stood hovering near the +gangway. The sailor and a steward were bringing down a shrouded figure +in an invalid chair--a lady, you might think, if you didn't strongly +suspect it to be Ernst doubling on his track after getting wind of +Singleton waiting down there behind the luggage. When quiet had +descended on the wharf and the ship was searched, Mr. Ernst would be far +away. + +"Put the lady down." Singleton's companion had planted himself in the +way of the little procession, his coat turned back to show the police +badge. + +"Go on, I tell you!" The voice that came shrilly out of the veils was +bewilderingly unlike the one Napier had been waiting for. The rest was +mere pantomime from where he sat. The veiled head turned and seemed to +catch sight of Singleton. Whereon the invalid darted out of the chair +and ran with extraordinary fleetness down toward the warehouses. + +When Gavan had pulled himself up on his crutch, he saw in the middle +distance Singleton's companion and the reporter running along the wharf, +while some yards further on, a squat, petticoated figure struggled +fiercely in the arms of a fat policeman. Hat and veil were torn off, and +Napier had an instant's glimpse of the face of Greta von Schwarzenberg, +horrible with fear. The next instant she had succeeded in drawing back +far enough to lift her foot, and to launch at the policeman a totally +unexpected blow in the belly. Stark astonishment, as much as anything, +sent the man stumbling back a couple of paces. The woman darted past +into a region of piled barrels, casks, and cases, policeman and reporter +in pursuit. Napier had fleeting glimpses of a game of hide-and-seek, +grotesque in spite of the fact that it was played with passion, Greta +appearing, disappearing, the others hot on her track, Greta tearing off +scarf, ulster, and jacket as she ran, and casting them forth for her +pursuers to catch their feet in. The policeman again fulfilled her +hopes, but in vain was the net spread in sight of Singleton. He it was +who at the most critical moment headed her off from the street. Back she +doubled toward the water and was once more lost to view. + +"If it was anybody else," Napier said, struggling to a balance on the +well foot, "I'd say she hadn't a dog's chance." + +"No, sir," the returned Day remarked obligingly as he steadied the +crutch. + +Owing, Napier afterward learned, to police orders in connection with the +apprehension of a passenger off the _Clonmel_, the Euston train was +still in the station. As Napier hobbled along the platform, Singleton +and one of the ship's officers went by, making hurried inspection of +each carriage. One door they opened revealed a man lying out at full +length on the seat. As he raised his head, Napier recognized in the +changed face Hallett Newcomb. The _Clonmel_ officer asked if his late +passenger had seen anything of "the lady, the older one." + +Newcomb shook his head. He'd heard she was going on to Ireland. + +"So did we," said Singleton. "We sent a man on board to induce her +quietly to change her mind; but that woman's the devil. Simply vanished +into air, or, rather, _I_ believe she dived." All the same, they went on +with their examination. Napier meanwhile had his bag brought into +Hallett Newcomb's carriage. The fruitless search for Greta ended; the +train was allowed to proceed. + +On that journey back to London Napier heard through what the survivors +of the _Leyden_ had lived, to what Julian had succumbed. + +In those next days Nan lay in that house in Berkeley Street where she +had helped to nurse Julian back to health. Napier sent or telephoned +daily to inquire for her. "Great care, complete quiet," Lady Grant wrote +at the end of a week. "Not easily or soon will she shake off the horror +of that voyage and of Julian's death." + +Napier was the less prepared for Singleton's visit, a few days later, +hot-foot from Berkeley Street. Singleton had, as he said, hunted up Miss +Ellis "as a last hope." Oh, yes, he'd seen her. + +"She'd been on the point of sending to you to get my address. What I +hoped she'd tell me, I've come to doubt if she knows. I want your +opinion on that. I see now I shall have to go warily." Singleton drew +his chair closer to the fire and held out a hand to the blaze. There was +not wariness only in the fine eyes, but the passion of the quest, and +behind all a suppressed excitement, new in Napier's knowledge of the +man. "For months," he went on, "there's been a leakage at the War +Office." + +Yes, Napier knew that. What he didn't know was that Schwarzenberg had +been the one to make first-hand use of the leakage. Singleton had come +to believe she'd engineered it. However that might be, "_there's_ +leakage still." + +Napier caught the infection of Singleton's excitement. + +"Can't Ernst get to the bottom of it--with the lady's kind help?" + +"_Her_ help? After he'd let her into the Liverpool trap?" inquired +Singleton with scorn for such innocence. "Ernst, poor devil, won his +release from Miss Greta, when he'd got her into our hands." The +secret-service man studied the fire, frowning. "I didn't get what I went +for, but I've had a rather curious interview with your American friend. +She'd been looking at back copies of the newspapers. The library, where +she was lying, was half snowed under with newspapers. Been poring over +accounts of the torpedoing and the rescue. But she hadn't been able to +find anything about Greta, not a breath. 'Well,' I said, 'doesn't that +mean there's nothing to say?' + +"'Only something to keep dark?' she suggested. Oh, she's no fool! She +sat up and looked through me. I explained that all I meant was that +Schwarzenberg mightn't be of such general interest as she imagined. She +thought that over a moment, and then she said something that astonished +me a good deal, given the terms Newcomb tells me they'd been on.' If it +isn't known where Greta is,' she said, 'that's bad all round.' I asked, +'Why, all round?' + +"She wouldn't answer directly. 'To be able to vanish like that,' she +said. 'It's true, then; you do some things badly over here.' + +"'Undoubtedly we do.'" Singleton smiled again as though recalling a +compliment paid the British service. + +And then he owned that she had very nearly bowled him over the next +moment by saying: "'You don't happen to know where Mr. Ernst Pforzheim +is?' + +"'Pforzheim?'" Singleton had echoed feebly with his vacant, +uninterested look. "'What makes you think of Pforzheim?' + +"'Because wherever Ernst Pforzheim is, we'll find Greta.'" + +Singleton smiled at her: "You're clear off the track. Pforzheim was +arrested ages ago and locked up." + +"But he escaped; Greta told me so." + +"Well, he hasn't escaped, so make your mind easy about that." + +She lay silent a moment, turning it over in her mind: "But if she didn't +find Ernst, what _did_ she do?" + +Singleton seemed not to know the answer to that. + +The girl sat up with startling suddenness: "'I thought I'd ask you +first,' she said. + +"'And second?' + +"'I shall have to pull myself together and find out if _somebody_ +doesn't know where she is.'" + +Singleton asked, "Why?" As she didn't answer that: "Is there any great +hurry?" + +"Well, there is," she admitted, with a nervous clasping and unclasping +of her hands. "I can't say any more, but the authorities have got to +know." + +"To know--" He waited. + +"That Greta ought to be found." + +"And when she _is_ found?" Singleton inquired innocently. + +Her answer evidently cost her something. "She ought to be sent out of +the country." + +Singleton suggested the futility of that had been proved. + +"That's why, that's why!" She clutched the silk coverlid. "The people +who know how to deal with these things have got to know. Though for _me_ +to have to tell them,"--her eyes filled--"it's an awful thing!" + +He saw a way to ingratiate himself. + +"I think I can save you that," he said. + +"Can you? _Can_ you? Oh, I'd be endlessly thankful!" + +"I didn't say that _nobody_ knew where to find the lady. Lord, it made +her sit up straighter than ever." + +"I was right, then," she said. "I felt you'd be the one to know. But you +are keeping back something. Mr. Singleton, what has happened to Greta?" + +He told her nothing very serious had happened as yet. + +She lay back on the cushions an instant, with her chin up and her eyes +on the window cornice. + +"Then--I'm--not too late," she said. + +"Too late for what?" + +"Where _is_ she?" + +"I didn't tell you I could put my hand on her," he said. "I told you, +very privately, of course, and as a great--the greatest--mark of +confidence, that there were those who could." + +"Well, I've got to be one of them," she said in her shortcut American +way. When she saw he wasn't going to notice that observation, she went +on: "Ever since I got better, I've lain in the room up there waiting for +a letter from her." She had said it precisely as though her last +encounter with the Schwarzenberg had been one of ordinary friendship. "I +telegraphed Lady McIntyre to forward any letters, and she has. Not a +thing from Greta." + +"No, I dare say not," Singleton had answered. + +"But why do you 'dare say not'?" Anxiety settled on her face again. "You +make me all the surer of what I've been feeling so strongly that I can't +sleep. Greta is in terrible need of help. All the more because of what +she's done." + +"And do you imagine, if she were in need of help, she'd turn to you?" + +"Oh, quite certainly." + +Singleton hadn't been able to repress the rejoinder: "It's a good thing, +then, she _can't_." He wasn't the least prepared for the sensation by +that innocent utterance. + +"_She can't!_" The girl had risen, and the silk coverings fell about her +feet as she stood there with frightened eyes, saying under her breath, +"_Why_ can't she?" + +He did his best to soothe her. "You've just admitted you wouldn't have +her free to carry out her designs." + +"No! no!" She dropped weakly on the edge of the sofa and sat leaning +forward: "Not free to do harm, but surely she is free to write to a +friend?" + +"I wouldn't, if I were you, be heard calling yourself a friend." + +"I _was_ a friend," she said. "How far can you go back, once you've been +an intimate friend?" + +"You have never been a friend, intimate or otherwise, because you never +really knew the woman." And then he told her--not the details of the +struggle on the wharf, the escape at risk of drowning, and the two days' +pursuit of one of the most notorious spies in Europe. He told her merely +that Miss von Schwarzenberg was under detention during his Majesty's +pleasure. + +When he had done so, he devoutly wished he hadn't. + +"Instead of helping us to find out who the woman's accomplices are," he +complained to Napier, "your Miss Ellis will be worrying us about the +woman herself." + +Then Singleton developed the idea that had come to him after leaving +Berkeley Street. Mightn't it be possible to get the all-important clue +out of Schwarzenberg herself by means of the Ellis girl if the +authorities could be persuaded to give her access to Miss Ellis? + +Napier was quite sure when his visitor left that Singleton was convinced +of the hopelessness as well as the inadvisability of that device. Napier +thought the less about what he characterized to himself as "the fellow's +crazy project," because his mind was occupied with endless speculations +about Nan. + +A sentence in a letter which came the next day in answer to one of +Napier's, shed a certain light. "Don't you, too, feel that I must tell +Lady Grant how things are before I see you here? I haven't the strength +for that just yet." She went on to say she'd seen Singleton and she had +since tried to get more definite news through the authorities. "But you +won't want to hear about Greta, though I must just tell you that Mr. +Singleton has been very kind. He's found out she's a Prisoner of the +First Class. That's so like Greta, if she was to be a prisoner at all!" + +In his uneasiness Napier managed, two days later, to get Singleton on +the telephone. He was told in a voice with impatience of "the stupidity +at H. Q. which persisted in blocking the unceasing efforts of that girl +to get permission to see the Elusive One. I've advised your +friend"--Singleton's laugh came metallic along the wire--"to ask _you_ +to get her the permit." + +"She knows better," retorted Napier. Something seemed to go wrong with +the line after that. He didn't get Singleton again. Singleton was +greatly occupied about that time. + +As a special, indeed an unprecedented, concession, a permit was +ultimately obtained for an unnamed lady to pay a visit to a person +designated only by the Number 96 in a metropolitan prison. + +Singleton didn't show Miss Ellis the permit until he had talked to her +for some minutes about the superhuman difficulties that had to be +surmounted before he had been able to get their request so much as +listened to. He had sworn not to yield up the all-powerful piece of +paper without exacting a pledge from Miss Ellis. She was to promise on +her word of honor that she wouldn't let the Schwarzenberg know who had +moved in the matter. This was of an importance he could not explain to +her, but it was "the condition." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +"Where are we now?" Miss Ellis peered through the blurred window of the +taxi. + +"Oh, it's a part you don't know. You haven't an idea," Singleton began +again, "what a triumph it is--this permit. Nobody believed it could be +brought off. And you are to see her alone! What do you say to that?" He +sat back in the car and looked at Miss Ellis. + +"Is it so unusual?" + +"Unusual! Bless my soul, it's unheard of! The rule is, either you stand +outside a grille and talk through bars, or you sit with a table between +you and the pr--the person you've come to see. The warder, or in this +case it would be the wardress, stands there, two feet away, hearing +every word you say and watching your hands to see that nothing's +smuggled." + +"They behave like that to prisoners in the first class?" + +"If a prisoner is dangerous, she has to be watched, whatever class she's +in. As a rule." + +"I see. In this case they trust to our honor." + +Singleton hesitated. + +"A--yes. It'll be an immense relief to her to have some one she can talk +to freely. I wouldn't be surprised--you see, she's bottled herself up so +long--I wouldn't be surprised if she took you more into her confidence +than ever she's done yet. I'd be careful if I were you," he said with +unusual earnestness, "very careful not to discourage that confidence." + +"I don't think it the least likely she'll take me into her confidence," +the girl returned on a note of regret, not daring to admit the thrill +that ran through her at thought of being the chosen confidante of a +prisoner--a Prisoner of the First Class, above all, of the erring, the +wonderful Greta. Nan was the freer to speculate about her now that the +pain of cutting the woman out of her heart was eased. To serve one who +had been her friend would satisfy every canon. If it satisfied a +hitherto unquenched curiosity as well-- + +"You couldn't make a greater mistake," Singleton was saying with that +new earnestness of his, "than to discourage any confidence. + +"Oh, I wouldn't, not for the world I wouldn't discourage her." + +"_Do the other thing_," he said impressively in her ear as the car +stopped. + +"Are we there?" Nan started up in excitement. + +"Wait a moment." He let down the window and put his head out to speak to +the driver. The car turned in the gray light and went on a few yards. + +"Tell her you'll take any message to her friends," Singleton suggested +to the girl over his shoulder. + +"Her friends?" + +He was staring out at glimpses of stone wall. "I should say"--he spoke +in his most detached manner--"I should say, you'd have a rather +interesting half-hour, particularly if you let her unburden her soul on +the subject of her--allies." + +The car stopped. Singleton got out, and rang a bell. The car was drawn +up close against a massive gray wall. Just beyond was a great +iron-studded door. In a moment it opened. A man stood there who looked +to the irreverent eye like the jailer in a comic opera--a big, saturnine +man with an enlarged waist (or an enlargement where his waist might have +been), and round this great girth of his a broad belt with the largest +keys hanging to it Nan had ever seen out of a pantomime. She asked +afterward if they were real keys. She thought that, like the halberds of +the Beefeaters, they must be symbolic, "just to impress on people the +degree of the locked-upness they'd got to expect here." As to the jailer +himself, he, like his keys, was "too good to be true." He wasn't only +like an actor. His forbidding manner, his black-avised scowl, and gruff +voice, had for the eyes at the car window exactly the same air of +unreality as the keys. To Singleton's horror, she confided presently +that it was all she could do not to applaud and call out of the window, +"_Isn't_ he doing it well!" with the mental reservation that really he +was overdoing it. + +The basso profundo with the keys stood frowning at the paper Singleton +had presented. + +"Is she here?" demanded the jailer. + +"Oh, yes, I'm here." Nan nodded and beckoned at him out of the window. +He gave her a yet more frightful scowl, and she nearly burst out +laughing as Singleton, in the act of helping her out, saw, to his +consternation. + +The scowling giant showed them into a bare little room with an open fire +and a chair in front of a table, where a big book like a ledger lay +open. Between table and fire was a telephone; all round the walls were +benches; nothing else. + +The basso profundo left them there in front of the fire. A warder passed +the door with a man in prison clothes who was carrying a bucket. The +warder spoke to the man. What he said was not intelligible, but the +quality of voice struck the light-minded smile from Nan Ellis's face. + +"How he spoke!" + +Singleton said he didn't notice anything unusual, but he was rather +relieved that she had stopped smiling. When the head jailer came back, +he had a wardress in tow. The jailer didn't speak, didn't even look at +the two waiting. + +"This way," said the woman, and led Miss Ellis briskly down a long stone +corridor. Another wardress stood by a door slightly ajar. + +"Be quick," she said to some one inside. "I can't wait here all day." + +"She speaks just as the warder spoke to the man with the bucket," Nan +thought. "Does anybody speak like that to Greta?" They wouldn't do it +twice, she decided, even before the reconciling phrase "First-class +Prisoner" recurred to her. She imagined Greta turning these wooden women +into human beings with a lash of her tongue. + +Going up the skeleton stairs Nan broke the echoing silence. "Does +Miss--the lady know I'm coming?" she asked in a low voice. + +Stolidly pursuing her way, the wardress looked straight in front of her +for so long, Nan thought, as she told Napier afterward, that the woman +wasn't going to speak at all. But when she had sufficiently marked the +fact that she wasn't there to answer questions she said, with that same +hard tonelessness, "I don't know who'd tell her." Through more corridors +they passed till the wardress stopped just short of an open door and +rang a bell. A younger woman of the same type came round a corner. + +"Tell ninety-six she's to come down," Nan's guide called out, but she +went to meet the other wardress, and the two stood talking a moment. +They seemed to resent the visitor's inquiring eyes. "That's where you +go," said the older one over her shoulder. Nan found, to her surprise, +that the direction was addressed to her, with a curt motion of the head +toward the open door. As she entered, the door closed behind her. Nan's +heart began to thump. "What if they take me for a prisoner, and no one +comes to put them right!" she thought. Her spirits had been steadily +sinking ever since she heard the warder speaking to the prisoner with +the bucket. Mr. Singleton had been wrong. Even for a prisoner of the +first class this was a terrifying place. She remembered something she +had read once that a captive in the Tower had said centuries ago, "'T is +not the confined air; 't is the Apprehension of the place." It was just +that. The atmosphere was thick, choking with apprehension. How long "96" +was in coming down! On reflection, it was almost consoling that after +that rough message Greta should take her time. Nan rested on the +confident faith that, when Greta came, the Apprehension would lessen, if +not vanish altogether, vanishing before that dauntless step. + +This room was even barer than the other: no fire, no open book, no +telephone; only a long, narrow table down the middle, several stout +wooden chairs, a window heavily barred, nothing else. Sounds outside +came muffled, and the more charged with Apprehension for that. What was +happening? + +The door opened. A glimpse of the tall wardress shutting herself out and +shutting in a squat figure clad in shapeless gray serge garments and a +foolish cap. + +Greta? _That?_ + +The girl held her breath, held all her being back from admitting that +the apparition by the door _could_ be--For it wasn't the disfiguring +dress alone or chiefly, that in the first instant had paralyzed the +visitor's tongue and rooted her where she stood. Greta, yes. And they +had clothed her body with ridicule. But what had they done to her +spirit? There was a horror about the change that over-topped pity, for +that awful first moment, while Greta stood, grotesque, dreadful, not so +much looking at the girl as looking through her, looking out of eyes too +haunted by other shapes to take in an apparition so insignificant as Nan +Ellis. Even when Nan was able to move forward, "O, _Greta_!" was all she +could say, but she held out her two hands. + +The changed woman hadn't even one to offer. + +"What have you come for?" she said in a queer voice. + +"Why, to--to see you." + +"To see what I look like. Well, you see." + +"O Greta!" The girl shrank as if the other woman had struck her. After a +quivering moment she added, "I came to ask if I can do anything." + +"Who sent you?" + +Nan knew now what was the matter with the voice: it was purged of +personality. Greta spoke like the wardresses, in a tone out of which all +modulation had gone. + +"Nobody sent me," said Nan. + +"No, of course not." + +"I _swear_ to you, Greta, you're wrong if you think--nobody wanted me to +come. I've had to move heaven and earth, I had to beg and beg--" + +"Beg who?" + +"Why, beg--no, I wasn't to say that. It doesn't matter now. But it's +been more difficult than you can think. I gave them no peace. I _had_ to +see you." + +"Why?" + +Nan felt guiltily that Greta had guessed that part of the answer was +because of a consuming curiosity. What Greta wouldn't, couldn't, know +was the pain and compassion that swept the girl after her first moment +of recoil. + +"Why?" Nan repeated. "Because of--what used to be." Greta seemed not to +hear. The girl was so aware of this that she raised her voice a little +and spoke with deliberate distinctness. "I didn't know if you had any +one you could depend on." + +"You _do_ know. I was fool enough to tell you." + +"Only Ernst!" + +The fierce instinctive warning in Greta's face against utterance of that +name, changed to contempt: + +"But they'll have got that out of you before you came here. Much good it +will do them." And then she found the strangest ground for triumph. "He +can take care of himself. They learned that at Liverpool. And because he +can take care of himself he can take care of me. If only"--her voice +fell huskily-- + +"If what!" The girl's self-possession broke. "Oh, you are living on the +wildest hopes! You must in a place like this. I can see it's terrible to +you to be here! But _how_ terrible is it?" In the silence she collected +herself. "No, you mayn't want me to know that. Tell me only what can be +done." + +Greta walked to the window, a strange shambling gait. She looked out and +then turned round, but not to face Nan. The strained eyes went carefully +all around the room. As she turned sidewise, the gray light fell more +merciless on the ravaged face, above all on that patch of discoloration +under each eye; no mere violet shadow such as Nan had seen on the faces +of the sleepless or the sick. This was as if a muddy thumb had set a +deliberate smudge under each eye, and as if the printing of that broad, +brown stain had been done with so ruthless a pressure that it had forced +in the lower arc of the socket. The eyes made careful circuit of the +room. They inspected the ceiling. They scoured the floor. Then Greta +bent down and looked at the under side of the table-top. She looked with +absorbed attention at the chair before she sat down in it--all signs of +mental aberration in the sight of the speechless girl, just as was the +loud, toneless voice in which Greta said: + +"I suppose they've sent you to get out of me what they've failed to +get." + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"Oh, you don't know what I mean?" + +"Greta! Greta!"--the girl dropped into the chair opposite and leaned +across the table,--"if I can put away hard feeling and suspicion, can't +you? I don't ask you to be friends outside this place. I don't _want_ +that any more. But can't you for this little time we have here together +just let me help you if I can?" + +"How do you propose to help me?" + +"It isn't for me to propose how. I don't know what you need." + +Again those eyes made circuit of the room. + +"What I need?" the hoarse voice repeated. So humped her figure was that +it gave her an air of crouching in the chair. The quick turning of the +head (all the rest of the body rigid), to look first over one shoulder, +then over the other, had in it, taken with the crouching attitude, +something animal-like. But the intensity of that listening was not given +to the voices in the corridor. Those voices seemed rather to reassure, +almost to soothe; for as they sounded nearer, she repeated quietly, +"What I need?" Moreover, she looked at Nan as if she really saw her, as +if she remembered who she was. "I sha'n't need anything long." + +In the eyes bent on her across the table tears sprang up. "Are you so +ill, Greta?" + +The woman made no answer. She was listening again. It seemed to be the +silence that spoke to her, not voices. + +"That's one of the things I thought of," the girl went on. "I might get +them to let me bring a doctor." + +"It would be a great doctor who should cure _my_ ill!" + +The words were despairing enough and spoken faintly, but that touch of +the old theatricalism was so much more natural than the hoarse, +uncadenced speech alternating with the insane listening to nothing at +all, that Nan took heart. "May I say you are ill? May I try--" + +Greta shook her head. + +"What's the use? I've always known I shouldn't live long. We don't." + +For a moment Nan couldn't speak. As to Greta, whatever she had come +through, whatever she was going toward, she hadn't got beyond enjoyment +of tearing at another's heart-strings on the way. + +"You mustn't say, mustn't _think_, you aren't going to live! You must +remember--" Nan longed and didn't dare to quote the precedent of the old +father in the Berlin brewery, still watchman of the night, as Singleton +had told her. She was the more glad she hadn't ventured to speak of him +when she presently found that Greta's "we" linked her to no blood kin. +She had sunk down farther in the chair, a huddle of coarse serge and +misery, and her hands slipped off her lap and hung at her sides. + +"The strain is too great," she said under her breath, speaking the truth +at last. + +The strain _was_ too great. It had broken the Greta of old days. And +just as, after the wreck of some great liner, only trifles are left +floating over the grave of the Titan, so the woman's surface +theatricalism survived the loss of more considerable things. + +"With people like us, our hand is against every man," she declaimed in a +husky voice, "and every man's hand is against us." + +"That's not true. My hand isn't against you." + +"We shall see." + +"_Indeed_ we shall!" + +Greta had made an effort to pull herself up and face the girl more +squarely, as though that call to "see" had imposed some change in the +focus of vigilance. + +This was not the visit she had been expecting. It had taken her unaware. +With a new self-distrust, an unwonted slowness, she was collecting her +wits and her physical forces, without for an instant losing sight either +of the obvious danger or the possible unique opportunity presented by +Nan's coming. To seize the occasion to recover some of her hold over the +girl--that could endanger nothing. It might even serve. + +"If you must believe," Nan was saying, "that my hand is against +you,"--barb-like, the phrase had stuck, quivering,--"you needn't think +everybody's hand is." + +"With the exception of that one, whose isn't?" + +The question was awkward. + +"Well, there are your friends." She waited while Greta's eyes arraigned +her fiercely. "And there are the people who, from their point of view, +owe you so much." + +"You mean--" Greta waited warily. + +"Those who set you on. The people you've run such awful risks for." + +"Oh, the powers in Germany! They'll trouble themselves about me!" Her +ghost of a laugh was more horrible than cursing. Some of the dullness +went out of Greta's eyes for a moment at sight of the impression she was +making on the girl. "You think, if we make a single mis-step, 'They' +spare us?" The slack hands came up and met in a hard grip on the bare +table-top. "They set us superhuman tasks in the midst of strangers. A +_woman_, set to play a lone hand against overwhelming odds, day in, day +out. No let up. One false move,"--the locked fingers parted, the hands +were lifted a few inches, and fell heavily on the board,--"you are +first suspect. Then you lose your liberty. Then you lose your life." + +"No! no!" The fascination of horror that had held the girl broke before +that evocation of the final doom. "You mustn't be afraid of that! You +_mustn't_--" + +"What do you know about it?" + +"I am sure, I am sure--" + +She ought to have been satisfied with the degree to which she had +wrought upon the girl. But that wasn't Greta's way. It didn't suit her +that any knowledge of intended clemency should dull the poignancy of +Nan's compassion. + +"You think I'm afraid I'll lose my life _here_! Pfui!" She forced out +breath too contemptuous to lend itself to word in that first emission. +"It isn't my life these creatures want. I'm no good to them dead. I'm no +good to them alive if they had the sense to see." She flung it to the +wall over Nan's head. + +"Oh, if you _knew_ how you've relieved me! Greta! Greta! I wouldn't let +myself be afraid of the worst. And yet, deep down,--since I came into +this room--I have been afraid. Thank you, Greta, for taking that horror +off my mind." + +It wasn't at all what Greta had intended. She looked at the girl. + +"A person like me," she said, with an effort at that high air of +old,--oh, the piteous travesty!--"a person like me, who is supposed to +know too much, if she doesn't pay with her life--it isn't always the +fault of the people she works for." + +"I don't understand," Nan breathed. + +"Probably not. We ourselves don't 'understand' till it's too late. What +idea had I, when I began, that every hour of my life I should be saying: +'Is it to-day? Will it be to-morrow I shall go under?' We mostly do go +under when we've served our turn." + +There was the ghost of the old satisfaction in the marred face as she +read in the young one how well the old trick worked. "Be very sure it +isn't our enemies we fear most. It's those you call our friends." + +"You can't"--Nan gasped--"you can't mean the German authorities who--ask +to have these things done?" + +"Oh, can't I?" She positively revived before her manifest success. "One +of my own friends was let in for an English prison by a German agent +acting under orders from the Wilhelmstrasse. My friend hasn't come out. +He never will come out. Two others I knew, one a woman, made the mistake +of knowing too much, and paid the penalty." + +"The penalty!" whispered the other. + +"They"--Greta stared in front of her--"they disappeared." Her fixed eyes +moved. They came back to Nan. "You imagine my friends were set against a +prison wall and had their account settled by an English firing squad? +Oh, no! We in the service"--with the old arrogance she threw back her +head, crowned by the horrible cap--"we know we have no such need to fear +any foreign power as we have to fear our own." + +Nan failed lamentably to respond to this form of professional pride. +"It's a ghastly trade." + +"You don't know what you're talking about," Greta said harshly. "The +best brains in Europe are at this work. Ask your friends of the British +secret service." + +"There's a difference between the secret service and spying." + +"Oh, _is_ there! Then it would take a Jesuit to find out and a fool to +believe. We are all in the same business. Only the other nations play at +it, and we work. No questions with us, no limits. You others, yes, all +of you,"--she flung it out,--"you paddle. We? We're up to the eyes!" Her +own, marred and mud-stained, were lifted to the opposite wall. "We're +_over_ the eyes!" she triumphed. "We hold our breath down there under +the surface till we crack our lungs. And smug people judge us! People +who have never done even a safe thing to serve their country--they judge +_us_--who face death hour by hour!" + +"You don't, Greta, anyway." Nan Ellis had her pride, as it seemed, +though its roots were deeper than nationality. "Lucky for you, you're in +England!" + +"England!" Her face as she turned it away was hideous with hatred. + +Nan stood up. "Though you refuse to be, I at least can be glad that in +England they don't--" + +"Oh, don't they!" She clutched at the edge of the table and leaned +across it. "I'll tell you what the English don't do. _They don't talk +about what they do._" As Nan opened her lips, the other raised her voice +to the level of a hoarse scream. "But there's a thing they don't +understand--your friends the English. They imagine they can wear us out. +_Hein?_" Again she addressed an invisible audience, still believing, as +Nan thought, that she was under the ceaseless observation that had +turned her wits. "These _English_! They think they can force a German +woman to sell her friends, to give away her country! A German! I tell +you"--she staggered to her feet--"these devils can go on as long as ever +they like. I don't know why they stopped--" + +"Stopped? Stopped what?" + +"Torturing me," she said, gutturaling the r's till they sounded like the +tearing of a fabric. "'Who is my friend in the War Office?'" The words +acted on her swifter than poison, more like the twist of a knife in a +wound. She opened her mouth and gasped for air. When it came she cast it +back in a cry that wasn't human. + +Nan shrank against the wall. A bell clanged. + +"'The name of the man in the War Office.' Forty times he asked me that, +that devil they sent to tor-r-tur-re me." She was speaking too rapidly +to swallow; the saliva gathered in bubbles at the corners of her lips. +"Every sort of question! Every sort of trap! Insinuating; gentle; quick, +sharp as pistol-shots. Over and over and over and over, till you long to +die. Then at last, when _he's_ worn out,--not I! not I!"--she cried to +the walls,--"then I'm led away, back to my punishment cell,"--she +staggered and caught blindly at the chair back--"and the board bed is +soft as a cloud in paradise. Two minutes. The wardress! 'Come, they want +you.' I'm taken back. 'The name of your friend in the War Office?' and +_da capo_. You see the plan? _Hein?_ The devils in hell must envy the +inventor of that Third Degree." + +[Illustration: "The name of the man in the War Office!"] + +The thing itself comes out of the Dark Ages, but the phrase was framed +in America. Nan had heard it before. This method of procedure was +contrary, perhaps is still contrary, to English law; but there was no +more doubt that Greta von Schwarzenberg had been subjected to the Third +Degree than there was doubt of its fearful effect. + +"Surely they know it's possible not to answer," the girl said, +bewildered. + +"Oh, they _know_!" Greta had fallen back into that hoarse whisper. "It +isn't in nature not to answer some things--to answer something that +sounds innocent; that gives you a rest; or to answer something +dastardly. Taunts--God! the things they say! Oh, you'd answer some of +them as long as you could keep your wits and wag your tongue; and +then--" She beckoned. Nan came to her round the table. Greta seized her +by the shoulders, and with so fierce a grip the girl, in a new access of +horror, tried to draw back. Those big, square fingers held like a vise. +Greta bent her trembling, froth-flecked lips to the girl's ear. "They +don't let you sleep. That's what does it--if anything will." She did not +so much let go her hold as fling Nan from her as she raised her voice to +its highest pitch. "Not even that is going to make Greta von +Schwarzenberg a tool of the English. Never!" she flung to the right +wall. "_Never!_" she screamed to the left. "_Never!_" She choked +suddenly, fell sidewise against the chair, and dropped heavily to the +floor. + +Nan ran forward with a cry. The door opened, and a couple of wardresses +rushed in. + +As they raised Greta up, she pointed down the corridor. "Ha! you see? +You see?" The backs of two men were disappearing in the distance. + +"You have failed again!" Greta shouted after them. "Always you'll +fail!" + +The wardresses quickly had her on her feet. They handled her with a +respect so scant that Nan broke in: + +"Let me, please! Oh, gently!" + +"She'll show you the way out." The tall wardress nodded curtly at the +other. + +Greta shot out a hand and clutched Nan's sleeve. "You wanted to help me? +Then find a way to see _him_. Say as long as it's _for him_, nothing can +break me." + +"I'm going to get them to send you a doctor," the girl cried. + +"Come." The tall wardress seized the disheveled figure by the other arm. + +Greta seemed not to know the horrible cap was falling off. "I'd rather +have you, after all, than any doctor." She still maintained that fierce +hold on Nan. "Specially now that I know you're as"--that laugh!--"as +silly as ever. Oh, why couldn't I be _selig_, too!" Her drooping lips +quivered. She fell to feeble crying. "I _wanted_ the good things. More +than any one in this world I wanted--since I was little I've wanted to +get away from ugliness and evil. I wanted to be a lady. _Ai!_" she +shrieked. "Damn you!" + +The younger wardress had slipped round behind the others. She had thrust +a hand in between Nan and Greta and loosened the prisoner's hold by some +sly use of pain. + +Greta turned on the woman. + +"Damn you! you--" words from which Nan fled shuddering along the +corridor, a wardress at her heels. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Singleton had spent a great deal of time on the case. He staked much on +that meeting between the two women. In his disgust and rage at the +Schwarzenberg's self-control under all her surface emotionalism, her +shrewd conviction that the interview did not lack auditors, spoiled all +his plans. + +He had as good as pledged himself. "Shut those two up in an empty room," +he had said to the chief, "and you've only to turn on the tap." + +And behold Greta, with a watch set on that tongue of hers, talking tosh, +and entirely content to work on the feelings of that little fool! + + * * * * * + +"She is delirious!" Nan caught up with Singleton and a strange gentleman +in the lower corridor. The strange gentleman hurried on and was lost to +sight. She was too excited at the moment to wonder how Singleton +happened to be in the corridor or to notice his black looks. Breathing +quick and hard, she said, "Greta is delirious!" + +"Oh, _is_ she?" She elicited no more till they were getting into the +car. Nan asked Singleton to tell the chauffeur to drive to Whitehall. + +"Whitehall?" + +"Yes, to the Intelligence Office." + +"What for, in the name of--" + +"We must get her a doctor." + +"They have a doctor here." + +"Not a proper doctor. You ought to see the condition she's in. We must +go to your chief and get him to allow--" + +When he'd spoken to the chauffeur, he followed her into the car, slammed +the door, and relapsed into moody silence. + +Above the profoundly stirred deeps a trifle rose to the surface. + +"I thought," she said, "prisoners of the first class could wear their +own clothes." + +"Well?" + +"Miss von Schwarzenberg was in prison clothes." + +"Then it's her own fault. She started first class." + +"How could it be her own fault? You don't think she would _choose_ to +wear such--" + +"She chooses to give trouble." Singleton relapsed again into silence. + +What had happened to Mr. Singleton after she left him? It struck her +from time to time that the man, who had been so sympathetic--nearly as +keen for the meeting as Nan herself, once his objection had been +overcome--seemed to take strangely little interest in the issue. This +knowledge marred and certainly shortened the account she gave him. She +found herself dwelling mainly on what Greta had told her about the third +degree. Singleton's silence got on her nerves. + +"What do you say to their not letting her sleep?" She waited to hear him +deny the charge. "You don't think they'll ever try that again?" + +"She'd much better have talked freely to you." It wasn't the coldness of +the reply that struck the girl so much as the latent menace in it. + +"Why should you have wanted her to say more?" + +"Well, didn't _you_? I thought you were for the Allies." + +"So I am." + +"After my persuading the chief it was better to let you do the job +unconsciously, then you go and"--with a gulp of bitterness Singleton +swallowed his too unflattering opinion of what, precisely, Miss Ellis +had gone and done. Only one count in the long indictment slipped out: +"To forget even to press the question of the friend in the War Office +when Schwarzenberg had broached it herself--to let slip a chance like +that!" + +"How do you know I let it slip?" came from the dark corner. + +"Well, _didn't_ you?" + +"I haven't told you so." There was a moment's silence. "How did you +know?" the girl repeated. + +"Well, how do you suppose I know?" + + * * * * * + +No word out of her for the rest of that awful drive till she saw they +had reached Berkeley Street. + +He apologized for not going to Whitehall. Too late. Everything shut up. + +"I'll go and see the chief to-morrow and let you hear," he declared. + +He scribbled a note that evening, reporting to headquarters: + +"No result yet. Particulars given to-morrow." + +Singleton didn't sleep much that night. He made up for the loss in the +morning. Before he was dressed a message summoned him to the chief. + +At Whitehall he learned that Miss Ellis had been waiting there that +morning before the doors were opened. She had sent in her card a good +hour and a half before the chief arrived, but she refused point-blank to +see any one else. The chief passed her waiting there in the hall. He had +her in. + +"You ought to hear the chief!" Singleton said grimly to Napier that +afternoon. Singleton himself had enjoyed the privilege of "hearing the +chief." She had come "to demand an extension of privilege for that +woman, a doctor and so on." + +The chief talked with her long enough to make up his mind she was no +good for the business. + +"He didn't spare her, I'm afraid. He says she cheeked him. Can't imagine +it, can you?" + +Napier couldn't say. + +"Well, I said he must have misunderstood. I reminded him she was an +American. The chief says in one breath she told him he was inhuman and +in the next demanded a permit to take a doctor to the prison. + +"'Oh, I know,' she interrupted, 'you're going to say they've got a +doctor--' + +"'I beg your pardon, that was not in the least what I was going to say.' + +"'What, then?' + +"'I was going to say, why should she have any doctor at all? Your +friend,' the chief told her, 'has it in her power, so Mr. Singleton +imagines, to do us some little service. If she won't, what's the good of +her? Whether she _could_ do us this particular service, since that +isn't what you've come about, we'll leave unconsidered. What there's no +doubt about is her power to do us harm. Your friend has got to be +suppressed.' And he shut that mouth of his like a steel trap. + +"'Suppressed!' She stared at him. Can't you see her? '_Suppressed?_ +How?' + +"'Ah, that's been the problem. Not with _me_. I've known from the +beginning there was only one way.' + +"'Only one way? You mean to murder her?' + +"The chief blinked several times at that. He hasn't got over blinking +yet, by Jove! He says she went straight from there to the American +embassy. Before she got any one to see her, the ambassador had been +telephoned to. So that's all right; but _my_ chance is gone. +Schwarzenberg is to have her final hearing on Thursday." + +"Is it likely to go against her?" + +"Likely? Sure." + +The butler came in with a folded half-sheet of note-paper on a tray. +Napier opened it. + + Get rid of him, please, Gavan. I will wait. + + N. E. + +Napier put the note in his pocket. + +"Say I'll be there in two minutes." + + * * * * * + +As he opened the door, he faced the Messenger standing there in the +middle of the room with wide, scared eyes. "O Gavan!" She fled into his +arms. + + * * * * * + +He held her there against him in the corner of the sofa till she could +speak once more. Every now and then she broke out crying afresh as she +told in incoherent fragments what that last horrible twenty-four hours +had brought of knowledge, of anguish, of loathing. + +"I've come to get you to help poor Greta and"--and she took for granted +he'd do that--"to help poor me." + +"Help you, my darling?" + +She gave that quick nod. + +"You must please do something for me and do it quickly." Her eyes went +to the clock. "Forgive me for not being able to take the time to explain +it all, but they--the Government of your country--is likely to"--she +caught her breath, and the voice sank--"to do the most horrible thing, a +thing you must prevent." In the silence she leaned forward the better to +see his face. Plainly it made her anxious; she looked away with that +fold between the brows. "I've just found out," she went on in a +half-whisper--"it's no hearsay!--the authorities consider that Greta was +caught 'red-handed,' as they call it. There's no time to go into that. +It doesn't matter--" + +"Doesn't matter!" + +"Not now. Oh, don't look like that!" + +She put up her hand and drew her finger-tips down across his face. + +He caught at the wrist and held her while he talked very quietly. There +was no trace of exultation over the "enemy" woman who had served him so +ill and served his country worse. "But we can't, to salve our private +feelings, leave a person of that sort--" + +"_Whatever_ she's done, you can't let her be killed, Gavan! Gavan, you +can't! Not a woman who was my old friend." + +"_Don't_!" he cried out. "It's more than I can bear to hear you calling +her your friend. Of course you are horror-struck--" + +"I am more than horror-struck; I'm haunted. I'll be haunted all my days +unless you--O Gavan,--if you're sorry, take me out of this nightmare!" +As he tried to draw her to him again, he felt her shuddering. "It isn't +horror only. I've been through vileness, too. It's all clinging about +me. I've seen a man making use of holy things for hideous ends. I've +seen a woman broken by torture. I've seen--" She jumped up, with a hand +dashed across her wet eyes--"If you can't _do_ something, if you let +Greta be shot, I shall never sleep again. I shall go mad." + +"Hush! hush! Don't you see that if I were to do everything in my power, +this business has gone too far? I am as helpless as you, as helpless as +she." + +"You can't say that till you've tried--tried everything. If you'll only +_try_!" + +Without her saying so, he felt that to have tried to save that wretched +woman, even to have failed, as fail he must, would count for something. +Whether it would count enough, who could say? There are games you can't +play with imagination and memory. Well out of his reach, she was +watching him with an intensity that held her breathless. + +"What you suppose I can say to the authorities, feeling as I do, _I_ +don't know." + +"I know." She came a step nearer. "Make them see that Greta can do them +one last greatest harm of all. Oh, she'll have the best of it yet if you +don't do something to stop them! Can't you see?" + +He shook his head. + +"Well, just think! They've got her absolutely in their power. _That's_ +an awful responsibility. They can do what they like with her. They think +she can't retaliate any more, but you show them she can. Oh, she'll have +her revenge if she can goad them into being cruel! I thought I was +asking you to do something for my sake, for our two sakes, when I came +here. But I see now you'll do worse than make me miserable as long as I +live if you let them--kill Greta. You'll be doing a bad service to +England." + +"You mean," he said, "that because she's a woman--" + +"Let _them_ think that if they like!" She watched him hobble to the +bell. "Oh, kind and dear--" + + * * * * * + +Two days Gavan spent seeing people, pulling strings, arguing, urging. +Unblushingly he used his friends, he pledged his credit. He had never +worked harder in his life; and then, to save their faces, the +authorities said they had never intended the death-penalty for the +woman. In England they didn't, and so on. + +Napier took the news to Berkeley Street that same afternoon. + +"But understand," he stood up before Nan's chair, leaning only on his +stick, "it's right to tell you, no power under heaven will make me +either in the near future or the far future, _nothing_ will make me +raise a finger to have that woman set free." + +"Free! Oh, no, she can't be allowed free." + +"Very well," said Napier, relieved; "just so you understand." + +"She's lost her right to freedom." + +He looked at her. + +"And you don't think death is better?" + +"Yes, death is better for Greta, but not for us. I mean, _we_ couldn't +do it, nor let it be done as vengeance. That isn't for us." + +His eyes followed her. "Where are you going?" + +"Going to push the little sofa to the fire. It's bad for you to stand." + +While he waited, not offering to help, just looking at her, a servant +came in. + +"Mr. Singleton, Miss, on the telephone. I've connected this one." The +servant went out. + +Nan went up to Gavan with a harassed face. She didn't want to talk to +Mr. Singleton. "Could you, do you think--" + +She left him at Sir James's writing-table, and went back to make the +cushions comfortable. + +"Oh, you're speaking for her, are you?" Singleton said. "Well, you can +tell her, then, that the play is _ausgespielt_." + +"What do you mean?" Gavan's voice was sharp. "They didn't go back on +their word?" + +"No, no; and she took the finding of the court this morning gamely +enough--death-sentence, commuted to imprisonment for life. They let me +see her a minute before she was taken back to her cell. Game? Never saw +anything like it, till I proved to her that Ernst was acting for us. +_That_ got her! But when they came to take her away, she was quiet +enough. 'Tired,' she said. Thought she'd sleep at last. 'Rather a +strain, these last days.' When they went in with her food--dead." + +"What? Say it again." + +"_Dead!_" Singleton repeated. + +"Heart?" + +"Not a bit of it. You remember my saying to you at Lamborough that we'd +found everything except a pinch of white powder? She had it all right. +Jove! I wish we had one or two to match her!" + +Gavan hung up the receiver and turned back to the figure at the fire. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MESSENGER*** + + +******* This file should be named 35671.txt or 35671.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/5/6/7/35671 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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