“Is your aunt by way of being interested in
politics?” Lutchester inquired.
“Not in a general way,” Pamela replied,
“but she is intensely ambitious, and she’d
give her soul if Uncle Theodore could get a nomination
for the Presidency.”
“Perhaps she is taking up the German-American
cause, then,” Lutchester suggested. “It
is a possible platform, at any rate.”
“I foresee a new party,” Pamela murmured
thoughtfully. “Now I come to think of it,
Mr. Elsworthy, the fat old gentleman who knew your
uncle, is very pro-German.”
He leaned towards her.
“We have had enough politics,” he insisted.
“There is the other thing. Couldn’t
I have my answer?”
She let him take her fingers. In the cool darkness
through which they were rushing her face seemed white,
her head was a little averted. He tried to draw
her to him, but she was unyielding.
“Please not,” she begged. “I
like you—and I’m glad I like you,”
she added, “but I don’t feel certain about
anything. Couldn’t we be just friends a
little longer?”
“It must be as you say, but I am horribly in
love with you,” he confessed. “That
may sound rather a bald way of saying so, but it’s
the truth, Pamela, dear.”
His clasp upon her fingers was tightened. She
turned towards him. Her expression was serious
but delightful.
“Well, let me tell you this much, at least,”
she confided. “I have never before in my
life been so glad to hear any one say so.... And
here we are at home, and there’s Jimmy on the
doorstep. What is it, Jimmy,” she asked,
waving her hand.
He came down towards her in a state of great excitement.
“Say, we’ve had to open up the office
again!” he exclaimed. “The telegrams
are rolling in now. That so-called German naval
victory was a fake. The Britishers came out right
on top. You know you stand to net at least half
a million, Mr. Lutchester? The worst of it is
I have another client who’s going to lose it.”
Pamela shook her head at Lutchester.
“The possibility of increased responsibilities,”
he whispered. “A married man needs something
to fall back upon.”
The offices of Messrs. Neville, Brooks, and Van Teyl
were the scene of something like pandemonium.
Van Teyl himself, bathed in perspiration, rushed into
his room for the twentieth time. He almost flung
the newspaper man who was waiting for him through
the door.
“No, we don’t know a darned thing,”
he declared. “We’ve no special information.
The only reason we’re up to our neck in Anglo-French
is because we’ve two big clients dealing.”
“It’s just a few personal notes about
those clients we’d like to handle.”
“Oh, get out as quick as you can!” Van
Teyl snapped. “This isn’t a bucket
shop or a pool room. The names of our clients
concerns ourselves only.”
