He looked pale, and his brows were sombre.

‘And were you sorry when I came along?’ she asked.

‘I was sorry and I was glad.’

‘And what are you now?’

‘I’m sorry, from the outside: all the complications and the ugliness and recrimination that’s bound to come, sooner or later. That’s when my blood sinks, and I’m low. But when my blood comes up, I’m glad. I’m even triumphant. I was really getting bitter. I thought there was no real sex left: never a woman who’d really ‘‘come’’ naturally with a man: except black women, and somehow, well, we’re white men: and they’re a bit like mud.’

‘And now, are you glad of me?’ she asked.

‘Yes! When I can forget the rest. When I can’t forget the rest, I want to get under the table and die.’

‘Why under the table?’

‘Why?’ he laughed. ‘Hide, I suppose. Baby!’

‘You do seem to have had awful experiences of women,’ she said.

‘You see, I couldn’t fool myself. That’s where most men manage. They take an attitude, and accept a lie. I could never fool myself. I knew what I wanted with a woman, and I could never say I’d got it when I hadn’t.’

‘But have you got got it now?’

‘Looks as if I might have.’

‘Then why are you so pale and gloomy?’

‘Bellyful of remembering: and perhaps afraid of myself.’

She sat in silence. It was growing late.

‘And do you think it’s important, a man and a woman?’ she asked him.

‘For me it is. For me it’s the core of my life: if I have a right relation with a woman.’

‘And if you didn’t get it?’

‘Then I’d have to do without.’

Again she pondered, before she asked:

‘And do you think you’ve always been right with women?’

‘God, no! I let my wife get to what she was: my fault a good deal. I spoilt her. And I’m very mistrustful. You’ll have to expect it. It takes a lot to make me trust anybody, inwardly. So perhaps I’m a fraud too. I mistrust. And tenderness is not to be mistaken.’

She looked at him.

‘You don’t mistrust with your body, when your blood comes up,’ she said. ‘You don’t mistrust then, do you?’

‘No, alas! That’s how I’ve got into all the trouble. And that’s why my mind mistrusts so thoroughly.’

‘Let your mind mistrust. What does it matter!’

The dog sighed with discomfort on the mat. The ash–clogged fire sank.

‘We ARE a couple of battered warriors,’ said Connie.

‘Are you battered too?’ he laughed. ‘And here we are returning to the fray!’

‘Yes! I feel really frightened.’

‘Ay!’

He got up, and put her shoes to dry, and wiped his own and set them near the fire. In the morning he would grease them. He poked the ash of pasteboard as much as possible out of the fire. ‘Even burnt, it’s filthy,’ he said. Then he brought sticks and put them on the hob for the morning. Then he went out awhile with the dog.

“She must think of her future.”

“Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in the future we have our own very definite plans about England, and that your information will be very vital to us. It is to-day or to-morrow with Mr. John Bull. If he prefers to-day we are perfectly ready. If it is to-morrow we shall be more ready still. I should think they would be wiser to fight with allies than without them, but that is their own affair. This week is their week of destiny. But you were speaking of your papers.” He sat in the armchair with the light shining upon his broad bald head, while he puffed sedately at his cigar.

The large oak-panelled, book-lined room had a curtain hung in the further corner. When this was drawn it disclosed a large, brass-bound safe. Von Bork detached a small key from his watch chain, and after some considerable manipulation of the lock he swung open the heavy door.

“Look!” said he, standing clear, with a wave of his hand.

The light shone vividly into the opened safe, and the secretary of the embassy gazed with an absorbed interest at the rows of stuffed pigeon-holes with which it was furnished. Each pigeonhole had its label, and his eyes as he glanced along them read a long series of such titles as “Fords”, “Harbour defences", “Aeroplanes", “Ireland”, “Egypt", “Portsmouth forts", “The Channel", “Rosythe", and a score of others. Each compartment was bristling with papers and plans.

“Colossal!” said the secretary. Putting down his cigar he softly clapped his fat hands.

“And all in four years, Baron. Not such a bad show for the hard-drinking, hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my collection is coming and there is the setting all ready for it.” He pointed to a space over which “Naval Signals” was printed.

“But you have a good dossier there already.”

“Out of date and waste paper. The Admiralty in some way got the alarm and every code has been changed. It was a blow, Baron — the worst setback in my whole campaign. But thanks to my check-book and the good Altamont all will be well to-night.”

The Baron looked at his watch and gave a guttural exclamation of disappointment.

“Well, I really can wait no longer. You can imagine that things are moving at present in Carlton Terrace and that we have all to be at our posts. I had hoped to be able to bring news of your great coup. Did Altamont name no hour?”

Von Bork pushed over a telegram.

Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs.

ALTAMONT.

“Sparking plugs, eh?”

“You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In our code everything likely to come up is named after some spare part. If he talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil pump a cruiser, and so on. Sparking plugs are naval signals.”

“From Portsmouth at midday,” said the secretary, examining the superscription. “By the way, what do you give him?”