Harleston glanced inquiringly at the Secretary.

“The lady is with you,” the Secretary remarked with a sigh of relief.

“Very well, sir,” said Harleston.  “Ranleigh has a skilled woman in the waiting-room, she will officiate in the matter.  We’re not likely to find anything, but it’s to provide against the chance.”—­And turning to Madeline Spencer:  “Whatever the outcome, madame, you will leave Washington tonight and sail from New York on the morrow; and I should advise you to remain abroad so long as you are in the Diplomatic Service.”

And she—­knowing very well that the search was necessary, and aware that while there was nothing incriminating upon her yet from that moment, until the ship that carried her passed out to sea, she would be under close espionage—­answered, pleasantly as though accepting a courtesy tendered, and with a winning smile: 

“I had arranged to sail tomorrow, Mr. Harleston so it will be just as intended.  Meanwhile, I’m at the service of your female assistant.  She will find nothing, I assure you.”

“Give me the pleasure of conducting you to her,” Harleston replied, and swung open the door.

“If Mrs. Clephane will trust you with me,” she inflected, flouting the other with a meaning look; which look flitted across the room to the Secretary and changed to one of interrogation as it met his eyes—­calm eyes and steady, and with never a trace of the interest that she knew was behind them, yet dared not show—­yet awhile.

And Mrs. Clephane answered her look by a shrug; and Harleston answered that to the Secretary by a soft chuckle.  As the door closed behind them, he remarked: 

“At a more propitious time.”

To which she responded: 

“Which time may never come.”  Then she held out her hand.  “Good-bye, Guy,” she smiled.

“Good-bye, Madeline,” said he; “and good luck another time—­with other opponents.”

“And we’ll call this—­”

“A stale-mate!  I didn’t win everything, yet what I lost was of no moment—­”

“Do you think so?” she asked sharply.

“To my client, the United States,” he added.  “So far as I am concerned, Madeline, we still are friends.”

He put out his hand again; she hesitated just an instant; then, with one of her rare, frank smiles, she laid her own hand in it.

“Guy,” she whispered, “she wasn’t as bad as she was painted; in fact, she wasn’t bad at all—­and I know.”

* * * * *

“Your Secretary of State is a peculiar man?” Mrs. Clephane observed, as she and Harleston came down the steps into the Avenue.

Harleston leaned over.  “I’ll confide to you that he is an egotistical and insufferable old ass,” he whispered.