“Very little, Marston, about the subject in hand,” she replied curtly.  “And now let us see how matters stand to date.  First—­the French Ambassador knows that a cipher letter to him from his Foreign Minister has been intercepted and is in the hands of the American State Department.  Second—­as it is in letter cipher, there isn’t much likelihood of it being translated.  Third—­the matter covered by the letter must be something that they are reluctant to send by cable; for you know, Marston, that the United States, in common with European nations, requires all telegraph and cable companies to forward immediately to the State Department a copy of every cipher message addressed to a foreign official.  Maybe they are not able to translate it, but of that the sending nation cannot be sure and it makes it very careful, particularly when the local government is affected.  Fourth—­France will have to choose between consuming a week in getting another letter from Paris to Washington, or she will have to chance the cable with the risk of America learning her message.”

“What do you think France will do?” Marston asked.

“If the letter concerned my mission, she will risk the cable,” Mrs. Spencer replied.  “She would far rather disclose the affair to the United States, than to let Germany succeed.”

“May she not be content now to warn the United States?” suggested Marston.

“It’s quite possible.  All depends whether the letter concerns my mission.  We have been informed by the Wilhelm-strasse that it probably does, and directed to prevent its delivery to the French Ambassador.  We’ve succeeded in preventing, but bungled it over to the United States—­the one country that we shouldn’t have aroused.  What in the devil’s name ails your assistants, Marston—­particularly Crenshaw?”

“To be quite candid,” Marston replied, “he had a grouch; he thought that Sparrow and I flub-dubbed the matter of the cab, and deliberately tried to lose him when we went to the Collingwood.  And when he did come, he drew his gun on us until he understood.”

“What?” she exclaimed.

“He thought that it was a scheme of Sparrow to injure him in your eyes.  It seems that he and Sparrow are jealous of your beautiful eyes.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.  “What have I, or my beautiful eyes, to do with Crenshaw and Sparrow?”

“What usually happens to the men who are associated with you in any enterprise:  they get daffy over you.”

“Because they get daffy over me is no excuse for stupid execution of the business in hand,” she shrugged. “You never have been guilty of stupidity, Marston.”

“Because I’ve managed never to be a fool about you—­however much I have been tempted to become one.”

“Have been, Marston?” she inflected.

“Have been—­and am,” he bowed.  “I’m not different from the rest—­only—­”

She curled herself on a divan, and languidly stretched her slender rounded arms behind the raven hair.