“To the woman who was my pledged wife,”
he said, “I would tell everything. From
the woman who gave me her hand and became my ally I
would have no secrets. Come, I have a message,
more than a message, to the American people.
I am taking it to Washington before many hours have
passed. If it is your will, it should be you to
whom I will deliver it.”
Pamela walked on with her head in the air. Fischer
was leaning a little towards her. Every now and
then his mouth twitched slightly. His eyes seemed
to be seeking to reach the back of her brain.
“Please go now,” she begged. “I
can’t think clearly while you are here, and
I want to make up my mind. I will send to you
when I am ready.”
Pamela sat that afternoon on the balcony of the country
club at Baltusrol and approved of her surroundings.
Below her stretched a pleasant vista of rolling greensward,
dotted here and there with the figures of the golfers.
Beyond, the misty blue background of rising hills.
“I can’t tell you how peaceful this all
seems, Jimmy,” she said to her brother, who
had brought her out in his automobile. “One
doesn’t notice the air of strain over on the
Continent, because it’s the same everywhere,
but it gets a little on one’s nerves, all the
same. I positively love it here.”
“It’s fine to have you,” was the
hearty response. “Gee, that fellow coming
to the sixteenth hole can play some!”
Pamela directed her attention idly towards the figure
which her brother indicated—a man in light
tweeds, who played with an easy and graceful swing,
and with the air of one to whom the game presented
no difficulties whatever. She watched him drive
for the seventeenth—a long, raking ball,
fully fifty yards further than his opponent’s—
watched him play a perfect mashie shot to the green
and hole out in three.
“A birdie,” James Van Teyl murmured.
“I say, Pamela!”
She took no notice. Her eyes were still following
the figure of the golfer. She watched him drive
at the last hole, play a chip shot on to the green,
and hit the hole for a three. The frown deepened
upon her forehead. She was looking very uncompromising
when the two men ascended the steps.
“I didn’t know, Mr. Lutchester, that there
were any factories down this way,” she remarked
severely, as he paused before her in surprise.
For a single moment she fancied that she saw a flash
of annoyance in his eyes. It was gone so swiftly,
however, that she remained uncertain. He held
out his hand, laughing.
“Fairly caught out, Miss Van Teyl,” he
confessed. “You see, I was tempted, and
I fell.”
His companion, an elderly, clean-shaven man, passed
on. Pamela glanced after him.
“Who is your opponent?” she asked.
“Just some one I picked up on the tee,”
Lutchester explained. “How is our friend
Fischer this morning?”
