into another country. Needham, the typical grey-haired English butler, stood upon the threshold.
“Luncheon is served, sir,” he announced.
Charles put his arm round Patricia’s waist and led her towards the dining-room.
“Had a pretty rough time, I’m afraid, Needham,” he remarked, pausing for a moment to shake hands with his servant.
“An exceedingly uncomfortable period of great anxiety, sir,” the man admitted. “Will you drink white wine or red, sir, with your luncheon?”
“The white wine to start with and then champagne.”
“It is indeed a festival day,” the Major, who loved champagne, declared as he unfolded his napkin.
Fortunately for the plans of the host the Major was obliged to be back in barracks at three o’clock. Immediately after his departure Blute drew his two young companions back into the reception room.
“My young friends,” he said, “I have a proposition to make to you. Thanks to our host’s marvellous telephone service I have already received the best of news. Mr. Benjamin is at Meurice’s hotel in Paris. He is in the best of health, his wife is with him and also one daughter. I shall never forget his amazement at hearing my voice. The situation is exactly as I feared with regard to our correspondence. Not one line has he received from me. One hundred communications of various sorts has his secretary addressed to me. The main line is still open to Paris. I with my guards and baggage propose to leave at five o’clock. With regard to Miss Grey, Mr. Benjamin desired me to say that no one in the world would be more welcome if she chose to accompany me. He wished me to add that her post awaits her and that her salary has accumulated. I told him that I believed she had found a more suitable engagement.”
“Excellent!” Charles declared. “There really is nothing more that either I or Miss Grey could do for you?”
“Not a thing,” Blute assured them. “I have a message from Mr. Benjamin for you, Mr. Mildenhall, and also for you. Miss Grey. It is a message, he says, too precious to be sent over the telephone. War or no war he demands that with the utmost expedition possible you spend the last few days of your honeymoon with him at Meurice’s.”
“Nothing would suit us better,” Charles acquiesced. “Your plan is admirable, Blute. What I want to do, and I hope Patricia will agree, is to fly to England to-day.”
“To England to-day?” she gasped.
He nodded.
“You only want your dressing-bag. I have loads of sisters and cousins who will cart you round to do trousseau-buying but I warn you, you won’t have much time for that sort of thing. It’s a special licence for us to-morrow. A week in England—half of it at the Foreign Office, I’m afraid—and all being well, Mr. Blute, you can tell Mr. Benjamin that we’ll be at Meurice’s in ten days. Then we shall have a week’s more honeymoon and I must settle down into whatever war job they give me. Is that all right, Patricia?”
She clung to his arm.
“It sounds like heaven, dear. But there’s just one thing—shall I have time to mend my frock or must I mend it in the plane?”
“I should like to start,” he told her, “in half-an-hour.”
“Then I’ll mend my frock in the plane,” she decided.
“And,” he went on, “as I should like to take a tolerably clean girl into England may I remind you, young lady, that I carried your dressing-case all the way up the hill and Madame Renouf has put it in one of the rooms that hasn’t been used. It has a bathroom and she will provide a maid to help you. You have exactly half-an-hour from now.”
She was gone like a flash.
“Quickest thing on her feet I’ve ever seen,” Blute remarked, as he watched her admiringly. “I’m not much for the other sex myself, Mr. Mildenhall, but I think you’re to be envied.”
The two men shook hands warmly.
“And so is she,” Blute declared. “I can’t say I’ve known many Englishmen, Mr. Mildenhall, but you’re—well, you’re all right. I shall be always glad I’ve known you.”
“And I’ve just one thing to say to you in reply, Blute,” Charles said with his hand on the other’s shoulder. “You never said a word when I nearly let you down, you never even looked what you must have felt. That was the action and the reserve of a great gentleman.”
“Ah, well,” Blute said, “you knew.” Half-an-hour later he watched their plane pass westwards—a glittering speck in the sky.
THE END
THE DOUBLE TRAITOR
