pleased.”
“You seem to have a very fair grasp of events,” Fawley remarked, as they entered upon the last course of their dinner. “Tell me, do you believe in this impending war?”
Again she showed signs of impatience. She frowned and there was a distinct pout upon her full but beautifully shaped lips.
“Always the same,” she exclaimed. “You ask questions, you tell nothing and yet you know. You take advantage of the poor little German girl because she is sentimental and because she likes you. Ask me how much I care and I will tell you. What should I know about wars? Ask a soldier. Ask them at the Quai d’Orsay. Ask them at Whitehall in London. Or ask Berati.”
“Those people would probably tell me to mind my own business,” Fawley declared.
Her eyes twinkled.
“It is a very good answer.”
They had coffee in Fawley’s salon—an idea of Greta’s. She wanted to be near, if Adolf Krust should return in despair. But time passed on and there was no sign of Krust. They sat in easy-chairs, watching the lights in the gardens and listening to the music from across the way. They sat in the twilight that they might see Krust’s car more easily, should it put in an appearance. Conversation grew more spasmodic. Fawley, he scarcely knew why, was suddenly tired of speculations. The great world over the mountains was moving on to a crisis—that he knew well enough—but his brain was weary. He wondered dimly whether for the last few years he had not taken life too seriously. Would any other man have felt the fatigue he was feeling? He half turned his head. The outline of the girl in her blue satin frock was only just visible. The vague light from outside was shimmering in her hair. Her eyes were seeking for his, a little distended, as though behind their sweetness there lay something of anxious doubt. The swift rise and fall of her slim breasts, the icy coldness of her hand resting lightly in his, seemed to indicate something of the same emotion. Her fingers suddenly gripped his passionately.
“Why are you so difficult?” she asked. “You do not like me, perhaps?”
“On the contrary,” he assured her, “I like you very much. I find you very attractive but far too distracting.”
“How distracting?” she demanded.
“Because, as we all know—you and I and the others—” he went on, “love-making is not part of our present scheme of life. It might complicate it. It would not help.”
“All the time you reason,” she complained. “It is not much that I ask. I make no vows. I ask for none. I should like very much, as we say in Germany, to walk hand in hand with you a little way in life.”
“To share my life,” he reflected, “my thoughts, and my work—yes?”
There was a tinge of colour in her cheeks.
“Leave off thinking,” she cried almost passionately. “Many men have lost the sweetest things in life through being choked with suspicions. Cannot you—”
There was commotion outside. The opening of a door, heavy footsteps, a thundering knocking at the inner door flung open almost immediately. Krust entered, out of breath, his clothes disarranged with travel, yet with something of triumph dancing in his blue eyes. He was carrying his heavy spectacles, he flung his hat upon the table and struggled with his coat.
“My friend,” he exclaimed, “and little Greta! Good. I wanted to speak to you both. Listen. I have talked with Berati.”
“You are to go to Rome?” Fawley demanded.
“I have abandoned the idea,” Krust declared. “For the moment, it is not necessary. There is another thing more important. I say to Berati—‘Give me a trusted agent, let him visit the places I shall mark down, let him leave with me for three days in Berlin and then let him report to you. No rubbish from inspired newspapers with Jew millionaires behind them. The truth! It is there to be seen. Give me the chance of showing it.’ I spoke of you, Fawley, indefinitely, but Berati understood. Oh, he is swift to understand, that man. To-morrow you will have your word. To-morrow night you will leave for Germany. I ask pardon—for half an hour I spoke on the private wire at the Royal Hôtel in San Remo. From there I jump into the car and we have driven, I can tell you that we have driven! You excuse?”
A waiter had entered the room with two bottles of beer in ice pails and a large tumbler. Krust filled it to the brim, threw back his head and drank. He set down the glass empty.
“It is good news which I bring?” he asked Fawley anxiously. “You are satisfied to come?”
Fawley’s eyes travelled for a moment to the dark line of mountains beyond Roquefort. There had been rumours that the French were combing the whole Principality, looking for a spy. Monsieur Carlotti had spoken of it lightly enough, but with some uneasiness. Fawley tapped a cigarette upon the table and lit it.
“A visit to Germany just now,” he admitted, “should be interesting.”
* * * * *
Krust in his own salon an hour later looked curiously across the room to where Greta was standing, an immovable figure, at the open window. He had rested and eaten since his journey, but there were unusual lines in his smooth face and his expression of universal benevolence had disappeared. Greta half turned her head. Her tone was almost sullen.
“You had success with our impenetrable friend?” Krust asked.
“I did my best,” she replied. “You came back too soon.”
CHAPTER XII
On his way down to the quay the next morning Fawley read again the note which had been brought to him with his morning coffee. It was written on the Hôtel de France note paper but there was no formal commencement or ending.
I am very anxious to talk to you privately but not in the hotel, where you seem to have become surrounded by an entourage which I mistrust. One of my friends has a small yacht here—the Sea Hawk—lying on the western side of the harbour. Will you come down and see me there at half-past eleven this morning? It is very, very important, so do not fail me. E.
The horse’s hoofs clattered noisily on the cobbled road fringing the dock. Fawley slowly returned the letter to his pocket. It seemed reasonable enough. The Sea Hawk was there, all right—a fine-looking schooner yacht flying the pennant of an international club and the German national flag. Fawley paid the cocher and dismissed him, walked down the handsome gangway and received the salute of a heavily built but smartly turned-out officer.
“It is the gentleman whom Madame la Princesse is expecting?” the man enquired, with a strong German accent. “If the gnädiger Herr will come this way.”
Fawley followed the man along the deck to the companionway, descended a short flight of stairs and was ushered into a large and comfortable cabin fitted up as a sitting room.
“I will fetch the Princess,” his guide announced. “The gentleman will be so kind as to repose himself and wait.”
Fawley subsided into an easy-chair and took up a magazine. In
