Chapter VI: Part 6

"Agents gather information from spies who perform the direct work of investigating. Spies usually work alone and report, through local agents, to consular or diplomatic agents. And these, in turn, report to the Ambassador, who reports to Berlin.

"It is all directed from Berlin. The personal source of all German espionage is the Kaiser. He is the supreme master spy."

"Where have you learned these things, Thessa?" he asked in a troubled voice.

"I have learned, Garry."

"Are you--a spy?"

"No."

"Have you been?"

"No, Garry."

"Then how----"

"Don't ask me; just listen. There are men here in your city who are here for no good purpose. I do not mean to say that merely because they seek also to injure me--destroy me, perhaps,--God knows what they wish to do to me!--but I say it because I believe that your country will declare war on Germany some day very soon. And that you ought to watch these spies who move everywhere among you!

"Germany also believes that war is near. And this is why she strives to embroil your country with Japan and Mexico. That is why she discredits you with Holland, with Sweden. It is why she instructs her spies here to set fires in factories and on ships, blow up powder mills and great industrial plants which are manufacturing munitions for the Allies of the Triple Entente.

"America may doubt that there is to be war between her and Germany, but Germany does not doubt it.

"Let me tell you what else Germany is doing. She is spreading insidious propaganda through a million disloyal Germans and pacifist Americans, striving to poison the minds of your people against England. She secretly buys, owns, controls newspapers which are used as vehicles for that propaganda.

"She is debauching the Irish here who are discontented with England's rule; she spends vast sums of money in teaching treachery in your schools, in arousing suspicion among farmers, in subsidising mercantile firms.

"Garry, I tell you that a Hun is always a Hun; a Boche is always a Boche, call him what else you will.

"The Germans are the monkeys of the world; they have imitated the human race. But, Garry, they are still what they always have been at heart, barbarians who have no business in Europe.

"In their hearts--and for all their priests and clergymen and cathedrals and churches--they still believe in their old gods which they themselves created--fierce, bestial supermen, more cruel, more powerful, more treacherous, more beastly than they themselves.

"That is the German. That is the Hun under all his disguises. No white man can meet him on his own ground; no white man can understand him, appeal to anything in common between himself and the Boche. He is brutal and contemptuous to women; he is tyrannical to the weak, cringing to the strong, fundamentally bestial, utterly selfish, intolerant of any civilisation which is not his conception of civilisation--his monkey-like conception of Christ--whom, in his pagan soul, he secretly sneers at--not always secretly, now!"

She straightened up with a quick little gesture of contempt. Her face was brightly flushed; her eyes brilliant with scorn.

"Garry, has not America heard enough of 'the good German,' the 'kindly Teuton,' the harmless, sentimental and 'excellent citizen,' whose morally edifying origin as a model emigrant came out of his own sly mouth, and who has, by his own propaganda alone, become an accepted type of good-natured thrift and erudition in your Republic?

"Let me say to you what a French girl thinks! A hundred years ago you were a very small nation, but you were homogeneous and the average of culture was far higher in America then than it is at present. For now, your people's cultivation and civilisation is diluted by the ignorance of millions of foreigners to whom you have given hospitality. And, of these, the Germans have done you the most deadly injury, vulgarising public taste in art and literature, affronting your clean, sane intelligence by the new decadence and perversion in music, in painting, in illustration, in fiction.

"Whatever the normal Hun touches he vulgarises; whatever the decadent Boche touches he soils and degrades and transforms into a horrible abomination. This he has done under your eyes in art, in literature, in architecture, in modern German music.

"His filthy touch is even on your domestic life--this Barbarian who feeds grossly, whose personal habits are a by-word among civilised and cultured people, whose raw ferocity is being now revealed to the world day by day in Europe, whose proverbial clumsiness and stupidity have long furnished your stage with its oafs and clowns.

"This is the thing that is now also invading you with thousands of spies, betraying you with millions of traitors, and which will one day turn on you and tear you and trample you like an enraged hog, unless you and your people awake to what is passing in the world you live in!"

She was on her feet now, flushed, lovely, superb in her deep and controlled excitement.

"I'll tell you this much," she said. "It is Germany that wishes my destruction. Germany trapped me; Germany would have destroyed me in the trap had I not escaped. Now, Germany is afraid of me, knowing what I know. And her agents follow me, spy on me, thwart me, prevent me from earning my living, until I--I can scarcely endure it--this hounding and persecution----" Her voice broke; she waited to control it:

"I am not a spy. I never was one. I never betrayed a human soul--no, nor any living thing that ever trusted me! These people who hound me know that I am not guilty of that for which another Government is ready to try me--and condemn me. They fear that I shall prove to this other Government my innocence. I can't. But they fear I can. And the Hun is afraid of me. Because, if I ever proved my innocence, it would involve the arrest and trial and certain execution of men high in rank in the capital of this other country. So--the Hun dogs me everywhere I go. I do not know why he does not try to kill me. Possibly he lacks courage, so far. Possibly he has not had any good opportunity, because I am very careful, Garry."

"But this--this is outrageous!" broke out Barres. "You can't stand this sort of thing, Thessa! It's a matter for the police----"

"Don't interfere!"

"But----"

"Don't interfere! The last thing I want is publicity. The last thing I wish for is that your city, state, or national government should notice me at all or have any curiosity concerning me or any idea of investigating my affairs."

"Why?"

"Because, although as soon as your country is at war with Germany, my danger from Germany ceases, on the other hand another very deadly danger begins at once to threaten me."

"What danger?"

"It will come from a country with which your country will be allied. And I shall be arrested here as a _German_ spy, and I shall be sent back to the country which I am supposed to have betrayed. And there nothing in the world could save me."

"You mean--court-martial?"

"A brief one, Garry. And then the end."

"Death?"

She nodded.

After a few moments she moved toward the door. He went with her, picking up his hat.

"I can't let you go with me," she said with a faint smile.

"Why not?"

"You are involved sufficiently already."

"What do I care for----"

"Hush, Garry. Do you wish to displease me?"

"No, but I----"

"Please! Call me a taxicab. I wish to go back alone."

In spite of argument she remained smilingly firm. Finally he rang up a taxi for her. When it signalled he walked down stairs, through the dim hall and out to the grilled gateway beside her.

"Good-bye," she said, giving her hand. He detained it:

"I can't bear to have you go alone----"

"I'm perfectly safe, mon ami. I've had a delightful time at your party--really I have. This affair of the letter does not spoil it. I'm accustomed to similar episodes. So now, good-night."

"Am I to see you again soon?"

"Soon? Ah, I can't tell you that, Garry."

"When it is convenient then?"

"Yes."

"And will you telephone me on your safe arrival home to-night?"

She laughed:

"If you wish. You're so sweet to me, Garry. You always have been. Don't worry about me. I am not in the least apprehensive. You see I'm rather a clever girl, and I know something about the Boche."

"You had your letter stolen."

"Only half of it!" she retorted gaily. "She is a gallant little thing, your friend Dulcie. Please give her my love. As for your other friends, they were amusing.... Mr. Mandel spoke to me about an engagement."

"Why don't you consider it? Corot Mandel is the most important producer in New York."

"Is he, really? Well, if I'm not interfered with perhaps I shall go to call on Mr. Mandel." She began to laugh mischievously to herself: "There was one man there who never gave me a moment's peace until I promised to lunch with him at the Ritz."

"Who the devil----"

"Mr. Westmore," she said demurely.

"Oh, Jim Westmore! Well, Thessa, he's a corker. He's really a splendid fellow, but look out for him! He's also a philanderer."

"Oh, dear. I thought he was just a sculptor and a rather strenuous young man."

"I wasn't knocking him," said Barres, laughing, "but he falls in love with every pretty woman he meets. I'm merely warning you."

"Thank you, Garry," she smiled. She gave him her hand again, pulled the rose-coloured cloak around her bare shoulders, ran across the sidewalk to the taxi, and whispered to the driver.

"You'll telephone me when you get home?" he reminded her, baffled but smiling.

She laughed and nodded. The cab wheeled out into the street, backed, turned, and sped away eastward.

* * * * *

Half an hour later his telephone rang:

"Garry, dear?"

"Is it you, Thessa?"

"Yes. I'm going to bed.... Tell Mr. Westmore that I'm not at all sure I shall meet him at the Ritz on Monday."

"He'll go, anyway."

"Will he? What devotion. What faith in woman! What a lively capacity for hope eternal! What vanity! Well, then, tell him he may take his chances."

"I'll tell him. But I think you might make a date with me, too, you little fraud!"

"Maybe I will. Maybe I'll drop in to see you unexpectedly some morning. And don't let me catch _you_ philandering in your studio with some pretty woman!"

"No fear, Thessa."

"I'm not at all sure. And your little model, Dulcie, is dangerously attractive."

"Piffle! She's a kid!"

"Don't be too sure of that, either! And tell Mr. Westmore that I _may_ keep my engagement. And then again I may not! Good-night, Garry, dear!"

"Good-night!"

* * * * *

Walking slowly back to extinguish the lights in the studio before retiring to his own room for the night, Barres noticed a piece of paper on the table under the lamp, evidently a fragment from the torn letter.

The words "Ferez Bey" and "Murtagh" caught his eye before he realised that it was not his business to decipher the fragment.

So he lighted a match, held the shred of letter paper to the flame, and let it burn between his fingers until only a blackened cinder fell to the floor.

But the two names were irrevocably impressed on his mind, and he found himself wondering who these men might be, as he stood by his bed, undressing.

XIV

PROBLEMS

The weather was turning hot in New York, and by the middle of the week the city sweltered.

Barres, dropping his brushes and laying aside a dozen pictures in all stages of incompletion; and being, otherwise, deeply bitten by the dangerously enchanting art of Manship--dangerous as inspiration but enchanting to gaze upon--was very busy making out of wax a diminutive figure of the running Arethusa.

And Dulcie, poor child, what with being poised on the ball of one little foot and with the other leg slung up in a padded loop, almost perished. Perspiration spangled her body like dew powdering a rose; sweat glistened on the features and shoulder-bared arms of the impassioned sculptor, even blinding him at times; but he worked on in a sort of furious exaltation, reeking of ill-smelling wax. And Dulcie, perfectly willing to die at her post, thought she was going to, and finally fainted away with an alarming thud.

Which brought Barres to his senses, even before she had recovered hers; and he proclaimed a vacation for his overworked Muse and his model, too.

"Do you feel better, Sweetness?" he enquired, as she opened her eyes when Selinda exchanged a wet compress for an ice-bag.

Dulcie, flat on the lounge, swathed in a crash bathrobe, replied only by a slight but reassuring flutter of one hand.

Esme Trenor sauntered in for a gossip, wearing his celebrated lilac-velvet jacket and Louis XV slippers.

"Oh, the devil," he drawled, looking from Dulcie to the Arethusa; "she's worth more than your amateurish statuette, Garry."

"You bet she is. And here's where her vacation begins."

Esme turned to Dulcie, lifting his eyebrows:

"You go away with him?"

The idea had never before entered Barres's head. But he said:

"Certainly; we both need the country for a few weeks."

"You'll go to one of those damned artists' colonies, I suppose," remarked Esme; "otherwise, washed and unwashed would expel shrill cries."

"Probably not in my own home," returned Barres, coolly. "I shall write my family about it to-day."

Corot Mandel dropped in, also, that morning--he and Esme were ever prowling uneasily around Dulcie in these days--and he studied the Arethusa through a foggy monocle, and he loitered about Dulcie's couch.

"You know," he said to Barres, "there's nothing like dancing to recuperate from all this metropolitan pandemonium. If you like, I can let Dulcie in on that thing I'm putting on at Northbrook."

"That's up to her," said Barres. "It's her vacation, and she can do what she likes with it----"

Esme interposed with characteristic impudence:

"Barres imitates Manship with impunity; I'd like to have a plagiaristic try at Sorolla and Zuloaga, if Dulcie says the word. Very agreeable job for a girl in hot weather," he added, looking at Dulcie, "--an easy swimming pose in some nice cool little Adirondack lake----"

"Seriously," interrupted Mandel, twirling his monocle impatiently by its greasy string, "I mean it, Barres." He turned and looked at the lithely speeding Arethusa. "If that is Dulcie, I can give her a good part in----"

"You hear, Dulcie?" enquired Barres. "These two kind gentlemen have what they consider attractive jobs for you. All I can offer you is liberty to tumble around the hayfields at Foreland Farms, with my sketching easel in the middle distance. Now, choose your job, Sweetness."

"The hayfields and----"

Dulcie's voice faded to a whisper; Barres, seated beside her, leaned nearer, bending his head to listen.

"And _you_," she murmured again, "--if you want me."

"I always want you," he whispered laughingly, in return.

Esme regarded the scene with weariness and chagrin.

"Come on," he said languidly to Mandel, "we'll buy her some flowers for the evil she does us. She'll need 'em; she'll be finished before this amateur sculptor finishes his blooming Arethusa."

Mandel lingered:

"I'm going up to Northbrook in a day or two, Barres. If you change--change Dulcie's mind for her, just call me up at the Adolf Gerhardt's."

"Dulcie will call you up if she changes my mind."

Dulcie laughed.

When they had gone, Barres said:

"You know I haven't thought about the summer. What was your idea about it?"

"My--idea?"

"Yes. You'd want a couple of weeks in the country somewhere, wouldn't you?"

"I don't know. I never went away," she replied vaguely.

It occurred to him, now, that for all his pleasant toleration of Soane's little daughter during the two years and more of his residence in Dragon Court, he had never really interested himself in her well-being, never thought to enquire about anything which might really concern her. He had taken it for granted that most people have some change from the stifling, grinding, endless routine of their lives--some respite, some quiet interval for recovery and rest.

And so, returning from his own vacations, it never occurred to him that the shy girl whom he permitted within his precincts, when convenient, never knew any other break in the grey monotony--never left the dusty, soiled, and superheated city from one year's summer to another.

Now, for the first time, he realised it.

"We'll go up there," he said. "My family is accustomed to models I bring there for my summer work. You'll be very comfortable, and you'll feel quite at home. We live very simply at Foreland Farms. Everybody will be kind and nobody will bother you, and you can do exactly as you please, because we all do that at Foreland Farms. Will you come when I'm ready to go up?"

She gave him a sweet, confused glance from her grey eyes.

"Do you think your family would mind?"

"Mind?" He smiled. "We never interfere with one another's affairs. It's not like many families, I fancy. We take it for granted that nobody in the family could do anything not entirely right. So we take that for granted and it's a jolly sensible arrangement."

She turned her face on the pillow presently; the ice-bag slid off; she sat up in her bathrobe, stretched her arms, smiled faintly:

"Shall I try again?" she asked.

"Oh, Lord!" he said, "_would_ you? Upon my word, I believe you would! No more posing to-day! I'm not a murderer. Lie there until you're ready to dress, and then ring for Selinda."

"Don't you want me?"

"Yes, but I want you alive, not dead! Anyway, I've got to talk to Westmore this morning, so you may be as lazy as you like--lounge about, read----" He went over to her, patted her cheek in the smiling, absent-minded way he had with her: "Tell me, ducky, how are you feeling, anyway?"

It confused her dreadfully to blush when he touched her, but she always did; and she turned her face away now, saying that she was quite all right again.

Preoccupied with his own thoughts, he nodded:

"That's fine," he said. "Now, trot along to Selinda, and when you're fixed up you can have the run of the place to yourself."

"Could I have my slippers?" She was very shy even about her bare feet when she was not actually posing.

He found her slippers for her, laid them beside the lounge, and strolled away. Westmore rang a moment later, but when he blew in like a noisy breeze Dulcie had disappeared.

"My little model toppled over," said Barres, taking his visitor's outstretched hand and wincing under the grip. "I shall cut out work while this weather lasts."

Westmore turned toward the Arethusa, laughed at the visible influence of Manship.

"All the same, Garry," he said, "there's a lot in your running nymph. It's nice; it's knowing."

"That is pleasant to hear from a sculptor."

"Sculptor? Sometimes I feel like a sculpin--prickly heat, you know." He laughed heartily at his own witticism, slapped Barres on the shoulder, lighted a pipe, and flung himself on the couch recently vacated by Dulcie.

"This damned war," he said, "takes the native gaiety out of a man--takes the laughter out of life. Over two years of it now, Garry; and it's as though the sun is slowly growing dimmer every day."

"I know," nodded Barres.

"Sure you feel it. Everybody does. By God, I have periods of sickness when the illustrated London periodicals arrive, and I see those dead men pictured there--such fine, clean fellows--our own kind--half of them just kids!--well, it hurts me to look at them, and, for the sheer pain of it, I'm always inclined to shirk and turn that page quickly. But I say to myself, 'Jim, they're dead fighting Christ's own battle, and the least you can do is to read their names and ages, and look upon their faces.'... And I do it."

"So do I," nodded Barres, sombrely gazing at the carpet.

After a silence, Westmore said:

"Well, the Boche has taken his medicine and canned Tirpitz--the wild swine that he is. So I don't suppose we'll get mixed up in it."

"The Hun is a great liar," remarked Barres. "There's no telling."

"Are you going to Plattsburg again this year?" enquired Westmore.

"I don't know. Are you?"

"In the autumn, perhaps.... Garry, it's discouraging. Do you realise what a gigantic task we have ahead of us if the Hun ever succeeds in kicking us into this war? And what a gigantic mess we've made of two years' inactivity?"

Barres, pondering, scowled at his own thoughts.

"And now," continued the other, "the Guard is off to the border, and here we are, stripped clean, with the city lousy with Germans and every species of Hun deviltry hatching out fires and explosions and disloyal propaganda from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf!

"A fine mess!--no troops, nothing to arm them with, no modern artillery, no preparations; the Boche growing more insolent, more murderous, but slyer; a row on with Mexico, another brewing with Japan, all Europe and Great Britain regarding us with contempt--I ask you, can you beat it, Garry? Are there any lower depths for us?--any sub-cellars of iniquity into which we can tumble, like the basket of jelly-fish we seem to be!"

"It's a nightmare," said Barres. "Since Liege and the _Lusitania_, it's been a bad dream getting worse. We'll have to wake, you know. If we don't, we're of no more substance than the dream itself:--we _are_ the dream, and we'll end like one."

"I'm going to wait a bit longer," said Westmore restlessly, "and if there's nothing doing, it's me for the other side."

"For me, too, Jim."

"Is it a bargain?"

"Certainly.... I'd rather go under my own flag, of course.... We'll see how this Boche backdown turns out. I don't think it will last. I believe the Huns have been stirring up the Mexicans. It wouldn't surprise me if they were at the bottom of the Japanese menace. But what angers me is to think that we have received with innocent hospitality these hundreds of thousands of Huns in America, and that now, all over the land, this vast, acclimated nest of snakes rises hissing at us, menacing us with their filthy fangs!"

"Thank God our police is still half Irish," growled Westmore, puffing at his pipe. "These dirty swine might try to rush the city if war comes while the Guard is away."

"They're doing enough damage as it is," said Barres, "with their traitorous press, their pacifists, their agents everywhere inciting labour to strike, teaching disorganisation, combining commercially, directing blackmail, bomb outrages, incendiaries, and infesting the Republic with a plague of spies----"

The studio bell rang sharply. Barres, who stood near the door, opened it.

"Thessa!" he exclaimed, astonished and delighted.

XV

BLACKMAIL

She came in swiftly, stirring the sultry stillness of the studio with a little breeze from her gown, faintly fragrant.

"Garry, dear!--" She gave him both her hands and looked at him; and he saw the pink tint of excitement in her cheeks and her dark eyes brilliant.

"Thessa, this is charming of you----"

"No! I came----" She cast a swift glance around her, beheld Westmore, gave him one hand as he came forward.

"How do you do?" she said, almost breathlessly, plainly controlling some inward excitement.

But Westmore retained her hand and laid the other over it.

"You _said_ you'd come to the Ritz----"

"I'm sorry.... I have been--bothered--with matters--affairs----"

"You are bothered now," he said. "If you have something to say to Garry, I'll go about my business.... Only I'm sorry it's not your business, too."

He released her hand and reached for the door-knob: her dark eyes were resting on him with a strained, intent expression. On impulse she thrust out her arm and closed the door, which he had begun to open.

"Please--Mr. Westmore.... I do want to see you. I'm trying to think clearly--" She turned and looked at Barres.

"Is it serious?" he said in a low voice.

"I--suppose so.... Garry, I wish to--to come here ... and stay."

"What!"

She nodded.

"Is it all right?"

"All right," he replied pleasantly, bewildered and almost inclined to laugh.

She said in a low, tense voice.

"I'm really in trouble, Garry. I told you once that the word was not in my vocabulary.... I've had to include it."

"I'm so sorry! Tell me all about----"

He checked himself: she turned to Westmore--a deeper flush came into her cheeks--then she said gravely:

"I scarcely know Mr. Westmore, but if he is like you, Garry--your sort--perhaps he----"

"He'd do anything for you, Thessa, if you'll let him. Have you confidence in me?"

"You know I have."

"Then you can have the same confidence in Jim. I suggest it because I have a hazy idea what your trouble is. And if you came to ask advice, then I think that you'll get double value if you include Jim Westmore in your confidence."

She stood silent and with heightened colour for a moment, then her expression became humorous, and, partly turning, she put out her gloved hand behind her and took hold of Westmore's sleeve. It was at once an appeal and an impulsive admission of her confidence in this young man whom she had liked from the beginning, and who must be trustworthy because he was the friend of Garret Barres.

"I'm scared half to death," she remarked, without a quaver in her voice, but her smile had now become forced, and a quick, uneven little sigh escaped her as she passed her arms through Barres' and Westmore's, and, moving across the carpet between them, suffered herself to be installed among the Chinese cushions upon the lounge by the open window.

In her distractingly pretty summer hat and gown, and with her white gloves and gold-mesh purse in her lap--her fresh, engaging face and daintily rounded figure--Thessalie Dunois seemed no more mature, no more experienced in worldly wisdom, than the charming young girls one passes on Fifth Avenue on a golden morning in early spring.

But Westmore, looking into her dark eyes, divined, perhaps, something less inexperienced, less happy in their lovely, haunted depths. And, troubled by he knew not what, he waited in silence for her to speak.

Barres said to her:

"You are being annoyed, Thessa, dear. I gather that much from what has already happened. Can Jim and I do anything?"

"I don't know.... It's come to a point where I--I'm afraid--to be alone."

Her gaze fell; she sat brooding for a few moments, then, with a quick intake of breath:

"It humiliates me to come to you. Would you believe that of me, Garry, that it has come to a point where I am actually afraid to be alone? I thought I had plenty of what the world calls courage."

"You have!"

"I _had_. I don't know what's become of it--what has happened to me.... I don't want to tell you more than I have to----"

"Tell us as much as you think necessary," said Barres, watching her.

"Thank you.... Well, then, some years ago I earned the enmity of a man. And, through him, a European Government blacklisted me. It was a terrible thing. I did not fully appreciate what it meant at the time." She turned to Westmore in her pretty, impulsive way: "This European Government, of which I speak, believes me to be the agent of another foreign government--believes that I betrayed its interests. This man whom I offended, to punish me and to cover his own treachery, furnished evidence which would have convicted me of treachery and espionage."

The excited colour began to dye her cheeks again; she stretched out one arm in appeal to Westmore:

"Please believe me! I am no spy. I never was. I was too young, too stupid, too innocent in such matters to know what this man was about--that he had very cleverly implicated me in this abhorrent matter. Do you believe me, Mr. Westmore?"

"Of course I do!" he said with a fervour not, perhaps, necessary. "If you'll be kind enough to point out that gentleman----"

"Wait, Jim," interposed Barres, nodding to Thessalie to proceed.

She had been looking at Westmore, apparently much interested in his ardour, but she came to herself when Barres interrupted, and sat silent again as though searching her mind concerning what further she might say. Slowly the forced smile curved her lips again. She said:

"I don't know just what that enraged European Government might have done to me had I been arrested, because I ran away ... and came here.... But the man whom I offended discovered where I was and never for a day even have his agents ceased to watch me, annoy me----"

There was a quick break in her voice; she set her lips in silence until the moment's emotion had passed, then, turning to Westmore with winning dignity: "I am a dancer and singer--an entertainer of sorts, by profession. I----"

"Tell Westmore a little more, Thessa," said Barres.

"If you think it necessary."

"I'll tell him. Miss Dunois was the most celebrated entertainer in Europe when this happened. Since she came here the man she has mentioned has, somehow, managed to interfere and spoil every business arrangement which she has attempted." He looked at Thessa. "I don't know whether, if Thessalie had cared to use the name under which she was known all over Europe----"

"I didn't dare, Garry. I thought that, if some manager would only give me a chance I could make a new name for myself. But wherever I went I was dogged, and every arrangement was spoiled.... I had my jewels.... You remember some of them, Garry. I gave those away--I think I told you why. _But_ I had other jewels--unset diamonds given to my mother by Prince Haledine. Well, I sold them and invested the money.... And my income is all I have--quite a tiny income, Mr. Westmore, but enough. Only I could have done very well here, I think, if I had not been interfered with."

"Thessa," said Barres, "why not tell us both a little more? We're devoted to you."

The girl lifted her dark eyes, and unconsciously they were turned to Westmore. And in that young man's vigorous, virile personality perhaps she recognised something refreshing, subtlely compelling, for, still looking at him, she began to speak quite naturally of things which had long been locked within her lonely heart:

"I was scarcely more than a child when General Count Klingenkampf killed my father. The Grand Duke Cyril hushed it up.

"I had several thousand roubles. I had--trouble with the Grand Duke.... He annoyed me ... as some men annoy a woman.... And when I put him in his place he insulted the memory of my mother because she was a Georgian.... I slapped his face with a whip.... And then I had to run away."

She drew a quick, uneven breath, smiling at Westmore from whose intent gaze her own dark eyes never wandered.

"My father had been a French officer before he took service in Russia," she said. "I was educated in Alsace and then in England. Then my father sent for me and I returned to St. Peters--I mean Petrograd. And because I loved dancing my father obtained permission for me to study at the Imperial school. Also, I had it in me to sing, and I had excellent instruction.

"And because I did such things in my own way, sometimes my father permitted me to entertain at the gay gatherings patronised by the Grand Duke Cyril."

She smiled in reminiscence, and her gaze became remote for a moment. Then, coming back, she lifted her eyes once more to Westmore's:

"I ran away from Cyril and went to Constantinople, where Von-der-Goltz Pasha and others whom I had met at the Grand Duke's parties, when little more than a child, were stationed. I entertained at the German Embassy, and at the Yildiz Palace.... I was successful. And my success brought me opportunities--of the wrong kind. Do you understand?"

Westmore nodded.

"So," she continued, with a slight movement of disdain, "I didn't quite see how I was to get to Paris all alone and begin a serious career. And one evening I entertained at the German Embassy--tell me, do you know Constantinople?"

"No."

"Well, it is nothing except a vast mass of gossip and intrigue. One breakfasts on rumours, lunches on secrets, and dines on scandals. And my maid told me enough that day to make certain matters quite clear to me.

"And so I entertained at the Embassy.... Afterward it was no surprise when his Excellency whispered to me that an honest career was assured me if I chose, and that I might be honestly launched in Paris without paying the price which I would not pay.

"Later I was not surprised, either, when Ferez Bey, a friend of my father, and a man I had known since childhood, presented me to--to----" She glanced at Barres; he nodded; she concluded to name the man: "--the Count d'Eblis, a Senator of France, and owner of the newspaper called _Le Mot d'Ordre_."

After a silence she stole another glance at Barres; a smile hovered on her lips. He, also, smiled; for he, too, was thinking of that moonlit way they travelled together on a night in June so long ago.

Her glance asked:

"Is it necessary to tell Mr. Westmore this?"

He shook his head very slightly.

"Well," she went on, her eyes reverting again to Westmore, "the Count d'Eblis, it appeared, had fallen in love with me at first sight.... In the beginning he misunderstood me.... When he realised that I would endure no nonsense from any man he proved to be sufficiently infatuated with me to offer me marriage."

She shrugged:

"At that age one man resembled another to me. Marriage was a convention, a desirable business arrangement. The Count was in a position to launch me into a career. Careers begin in Paris. And I knew enough to realise that a girl has to pay in one way or another for such an opportunity. So I said that I would marry him if I came to care enough for him. Which merely meant that if he were ordinarily polite and considerate and companionable I would ultimately become his wife.

"That was the arrangement. And it caused much trouble. Because I was a--" she smiled at Barres, "--a success from the first moment. And d'Eblis immediately began to be abominably jealous and unreasonable. Again and again he broke his promise and tried to interfere with my career. He annoyed me constantly by coming to my hotel at inopportune moments; he made silly scenes if I ventured to have any friends or if I spoke twice to the same man; he distrusted me--he and Ferez Bey, who had taken service with him. Together they humiliated me, made my life miserable by their distrust.

"I warned d'Eblis that his absurd jealousy and unkindness would not advance him in my interest. And for a while he seemed to become more reasonable. In fact, he apparently became sane again, and I had even consented to our betrothal, when, by accident, I discovered that he and Ferez were having me followed everywhere I went. And that very night was to have been a gay one--a party in honour of our betrothal--the night I discovered what he and Ferez had been doing to me.

"I was so hurt, so incensed, that--" She cast an involuntary glance at Barres; he made a slight movement of negation, and she concluded her sentence calmly: "--I quarrelled with d'Eblis.... There was a very dreadful scene. And it transpired that he had sold a preponderating interest in _Le Mot d'Ordre_ to Ferez Bey, who was operating the paper in German interests through orders directly from Berlin. And d'Eblis thought I knew this and that I meant to threaten him, perhaps blackmail him, to shield some mythical lover with whom, he declared, I had become involved, and who was betraying him to the British Ambassador."

She drew a deep, long breath:

"Is it necessary for me to say that there was not a particle of truth in his hysterical accusations?--that I was utterly astounded? But my amazement became anger and then sheer terror when I learned from his own lips that he had cunningly involved me in his transactions with Ferez and with Berlin. So cunningly, so cleverly, so seriously had he managed to compromise me as a German agent that he had a mass of evidence against me sufficient to have had me court-martialled and shot had it been in time of war.

"To me the situation seemed hopeless. I never would be believed by the French Government. Horror of arrest overwhelmed me. In a panic I took my unset jewels and fled to Belgium. And then I came here."

She paused, trembling a little at the memory of it all. Then:

"The agents of d'Eblis and Ferez discovered me and have given me no peace. I do not appeal to the police because that would stir up secret agents of the French Government. But it has come now to a place where--where I don't know what to do.... And so--being afraid at last--I am here to--to ask--advice----"

She waited to control her voice, then opened her gold-mesh bag and drew from it a letter.

"Three weeks ago I received this," she said. "I ignored it. Two weeks ago, as I opened the door of my room to go out, a shot was fired at me, and I heard somebody running down stairs.... I was badly scared. But I went out and did my shopping, and then I went to the writing room of a hotel and wrote to Garry.... Somebody watching me must have seen me write it, because an attempt was made to steal the letter. A man wearing a handkerchief over his face tried to snatch it out of the hands of Dulcie Soane. But he got only half of the letter.

"And when I got home that same evening I found that my room had been ransacked.... That was why I did not go to meet you at the Ritz; I was too upset. Besides, I was busy moving my quarters.... But it was no use. Last night I was awakened by hearing somebody working at the lock of my bedroom. And I sat up till morning with a pistol in my hand.... And--I don't think I had better live entirely alone--until it is safer. Do you, Garry?"

"I should think not!" said Westmore, turning red with anger.

"Did you wish us to see that letter?" asked Barres.

She handed it to him. It was typewritten; and he read it aloud, leisurely and very distinctly, pausing now and then to give full weight to some particularly significant and sinister sentence:

"MADEMOISELLE:

"For two years and more it has been repeatedly intimated to you
that your presence in America is not desirable to certain people,
except under certain conditions, which conditions you refuse to
consider.

"You have impudently ignored these intimations.

"Now, you are beginning to meddle. Therefore, this warning is sent
to you: _Mind your business and cease your meddling!_

"Moreover, you are invited to leave the United States at your
early convenience.

"France, England, Russia, and Italy are closed to you. Without
doubt you understand that. Also, doubtless you have no desire to
venture into Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, or Turkey. Scandinavia
remains open to you, and practically no other country except
Spain, because we do not permit you to go to Mexico or to Central
or South America. Do you comprehend? _We_ do not permit it.

"Therefore, hold your tongue and control your _furor scribendi_
while in New York. And make arrangements to take the next Danish
steamer for Christiania.

"This is a friendly warning. For if you are still here in the
United States two weeks after you have received this letter, other
measures will be taken in your regard which will effectually
dispose of your troublesome presence.

"The necessity which forces us to radical action in this affair is
regrettable, but entirely your own fault.

"You have, from time to time during the last two years, received
from us overtures of an amicable nature. You have been approached
with discretion and have been offered every necessary guarantee to
cover an understanding with us.

"You have treated our advances with frivolity and contempt. And
what have you gained by your defiance?

"Our patience and good nature has reached its limits. We shall ask
nothing further of you; we deliver you our orders hereafter. And
our orders are to leave New York immediately.

"Yet, even now, at the eleventh hour, it may not be too late for
us to come to some understanding if you change your attitude
entirely and show a proper willingness to negotiate with us in all
good faith.

"But that must be accomplished within the two weeks' grace given
you before you depart.

"You know how to proceed. If you try to play us false you had
better not have been born. If you deal honestly with us your
troubles are over.

"This is final.

"THE WATCHER."

XVI

THE WATCHER

"The Watcher," repeated Barres, studying the typewritten signature for a moment longer. Then he looked at Westmore: "What do you think of that, Jim?"

Westmore, naturally short tempered, became very red, got to his feet, and began striding about the studio as though some sudden blaze of inward anger were driving him into violent motion.

"The thing to do," he said, "is to catch this 'Watcher' fellow and beat him up. That's the way to deal with blackmailers--catch 'em and beat 'em up--vermin of this sort--this blackmailing fraternity!--I haven't anything to do; I'll take the job!"

"We'd better talk it over first," suggested Barres. "There seem to be several ways of going about it. One way, of course, is to turn detective and follow Thessa around town. And, as you say, spot any man who dogs her and beat him up very thoroughly. That's your way, Jim. But Thessa, unfortunately, doesn't desire to be featured, and you can't go about beating up people in the streets of New York without inviting publicity."

Westmore came back and stood near Thessalie, who looked up at him from her seat on the Chinese couch with visible interest:

"Mr. Westmore?"

"Yes?"

"Garry is quite right about the way I feel. I don't want notoriety. I can't afford it. It would mean stirring up every French Government agent here in New York. And if America should ever declare war on Germany and become an ally of France, then your own Secret Service here would instantly arrest me and probably send me to France to stand trial."

She bent her pretty head, adding in a quiet voice:

"Extradition would bring a very swift end to my career. With the lying evidence against me and a Senator of France to corroborate it by perjury--ask yourselves, gentlemen, how long it would take a military court to send me to the parade in the nearest caserne!"

"Do you mean they'd shoot you?" demanded Westmore, aghast.

"Any court-martial to-day would turn me over to a firing squad!"

"You see," said Barres, turning to Westmore, "this is a much more serious matter than a case of ordinary blackmail."

"Why not go to our own Secret Service authorities and lay the entire business before them?" asked Westmore excitedly.

But Thessalie shook her head:

"The evidence against me in Paris is overwhelming. My dossier alone, as it now stands, would surely condemn me without corroborative evidence. Your people here would never believe in me if the French Government forwarded to them a copy of my dossier from the secret archives in Paris. As for my own Government----" She merely shrugged.

Barres, much troubled, glanced from Thessalie to Westmore.

"It's rather a rotten situation," he said. "There must be, of course, some sensible way to tackle it, though I don't quite see it yet. But one thing is very plain to me: Thessa ought to remain here with us for the present. Don't you think so, Jim?"

"How can I, Garry?" she asked. "You have only one room, and I couldn't turn you out----"

"I can arrange that," interposed Westmore, turning eagerly to Barres with a significant gesture toward the door at the end of the studio. "There's the solution, isn't it?"

"Certainly," agreed Barres; and to Thessalie, in explanation: "Westmore's two bedrooms adjoin my studio--beyond that wall. We have merely to unlock those folding doors and throw his apartment into mine, making one long suite of rooms. Then you may have my room and I'll take his spare room."

She still hesitated.

"I am very grateful, Garry, and I admit that I am becoming almost afraid to remain entirely alone, but----"

"Send for your effects," he insisted cheerfully. "Aristocrates will move my stuff into Westmore's spare room. Then you shall take my quarters and be comfortable and well guarded with Aristocrates and Selinda on one side of you, and Jim and myself just across the studio." He cast a sombre glance at Westmore: "I suppose those rats will ultimately trail her to this place."

Westmore turned to Thessalie:

"Where are your effects?" he asked.

She smiled forlornly:

"I gave up my lodgings this morning, packed everything, and came here, rather scared." A little flush came over her face and she lifted her dark eyes and met Westmore's intent gaze. "You are very kind," she said. "My trunks are at the Grand Central Station--if you desire to make up my disconcerted mind for me. Do you really want me to come here and stay a few days?"

Westmore suppressed himself no longer:

"I won't _let_ you go!" he said. "I'm worried sick about you!" And to Barres, who sat slightly amazed at his friend's warmth:

"Do you suppose any of those dirty dogs have traced the trunks?"

Thessalie said:

"I've never yet been able to conceal anything from them."

"Probably, then," said Barres, "they have traced your luggage and are watching it."

"Give me your checks, anyway," said Westmore. "I'll go at once and get your baggage and bring it here. If they're watching for you it will jolt them to see a man on the job."

Barres nodded approval; Thessalie opened her purse and handed Westmore the checks.

"You both are so kind," she murmured. "I have not felt so sheltered, so secure in many, many months."

Westmore, extremely red again, controlled his emotions--whatever they were--with a visible effort:

"Don't worry for one moment," he said. "Garry and I are going to settle this outrageous business for you. Now, I'm off to find your trunks. And if you could give me a description of any of these fellows who follow you about----"

"Please--you are not to beat up anybody!" she reminded him, with a troubled smile.

"I'll remember. I promise you not to."

Barres said:

"I think one of them is a tall, bony, one-eyed man, who has been hanging around here pretending to peddle artists' materials."

Thessalie made a quick gesture of assent and of caution:

"Yes! His name is Max Freund. I have found it impossible to conceal my whereabouts from him. This man, with only one eye, appears to be a friend of the superintendent, Soane. I am not certain that Soane himself is employed by this gang of blackmailers, but I believe that his one-eyed friend may pay him for any scraps of information concerning me."

"Then we had better keep an eye on Soane," growled Westmore. "He's no good; he'll take graft from anybody."

"Where is his daughter, Dulcie?" asked Thessalie. "Is she not your model, Garry?"

"Yes. She's in my room now, lying down. This morning it was pretty hot in here, and Dulcie fainted on the model stand."

"The poor child!" exclaimed Thessalie impulsively. "Could I go in and see her?"

"Why, yes, if you like," he replied, surprised at her warm-hearted interest. He added, as Thessalie rose: "She is really all right again. But go in if you like. And you might tell Dulcie she can have her lunch in there if she wants it; but if she's going to dress she ought to be about it, because it's getting on toward the luncheon hour."

So Thessalie went swiftly away down the corridor to knock at the door of the bedroom, and Barres walked out with Westmore as far as the stairs.

"Jim," he said very soberly, "this whole business looks ugly to me. Thessa seems to be seriously entangled in the meshes of some blackmailing spider who is sewing her up tight."

"It's probably a tighter web than we realise," growled Westmore. "It looks to me as though Miss Dunois has been caught in the main net of German intrigue. And that the big spider in Berlin did the spinning."

"That's certainly what it looks like," admitted the other in a grave voice. "I don't believe that this is merely a local matter--an affair of petty, personal vengeance: I believe that the Hun is actually afraid of her--afraid of the evidence she might be able to furnish against certain traitors in Paris."

Westmore nodded gloomily:

"I'm pretty sure of it, too. They've tried, apparently, to win her over. They've tried, also, to drive her out of this country. Now, they mean to force her out, or perhaps kill her! Good God! Garry, did you ever hear of such filthy impudence as this entire German propaganda in America?"

"Go and get her trunks," said Barres, deeply worried. "By the time you fetch 'em back here, lunch will be ready. Afterward, we'd all better get together and talk over this unpleasant situation."

Westmore glanced at his watch, turned and went swinging away in his quick, energetic stride. Barres walked slowly back to the studio.

There was nobody there. Thessalie had not yet returned from her visit to Dulcie Soane.

The Prophet, however, came in presently, his tail politely hoisted. An agreeable aroma from the kitchen had doubtless allured him; he made an amicable remark to Barres, suffered himself to be caressed, then sprang to the carved table--his favourite vantage point for observation--and gazed solemnly toward the dining-room.

For half an hour or more, Barres fussed and pottered about in the rather aimless manner of all artists, shifting canvases and stacking them against the wall, twirling his wax Arethusa around to inspect her from every possible and impossible angle, using clouds of fixitive on such charcoal studies as required it, scraping away meditatively at a too long neglected palette.

He was already frankly concerned about Thessalie, and the more he considered her situation the keener grew his apprehension.

Yet he, like all his fellow Americans, had not yet actually persuaded himself to believe in spies.

Of course he read about them and their machinations in the daily papers; the spy scare was already well developed in New York; yet, to him and to the great majority of his fellow countrymen, people who made a profession of such a dramatic business seemed unreal--abstract types, not concrete examples of the human race--and he could not believe in them--could neither visualise such people nor realise that they existed outside melodrama or the covers of a best-seller.

There is an incredulity which knows yet refuses to believe in its own knowledge. It is very American and it represented the paradoxical state of mind of this deeply worried young man, as he stood there in the studio, scraping away mechanically at his crusted palette.

Then, as he turned to lay it aside, through the open studio door he saw a strange, bespectacled man looking in at him intently.

An unpleasant shock passed through him, and his instinct started him toward the open door to close it.

"Excuse," said he of the thick spectacles; and Barres stopped short:

"Well, what is it?" he asked sharply.

The man, who was well dressed and powerfully built, squinted through his spectacles out of little, inflamed and pig-like eyes.

"Miss Dunois iss here?" he enquired politely. "I haff a message----"

"What is your name?"

"Excuse, please. My name iss not personally known to Miss Dunois----"

"Then what is your business with Miss Dunois?"

"Excuse, please. It iss of a delicacy--of a nature quite private, iff you please."

Barres inspected him in hostile silence for a moment, then came to a swift conclusion.

"Very well. Step inside," he said briefly.

"I thank you, I will wait here----"

"Step inside!" snapped Barres.

Startled into silence, the man only blinked at him. Under the other's searching, suspicious gaze, the small, pig-like eyes were now shifting uneasily; then, as Barres took an abrupt step forward, the man shrank away and stammered out something about a letter which he was to deliver to Miss Dunois in private.

"You say you have a letter for Miss Dunois?" demanded Barres, now determined to get hold of him.

"I am instructed to giff it myself to her in private, all alone----"

"Give it to _me_!"

"I am instruc----"

"Give it to me, I tell you!--and come inside here! Do you hear what I'm saying to you?"

The spectacled man lost most of his colour as Barres started toward him.