Elusive Isabel | Page 3

the expression of his
face. There was wonder in it, and amazement, and more than these.
Again he bowed low.
"I am at your service, Madam," he repeated. "I shall take pleasure in
making any arrangements that are necessary. Again, I beg your
pardon."
"And it will not be so very difficult, after all, will it?" she inquired, and
she smiled tauntingly.
"It will not be at all difficult, Madam," the ambassador assured her
gravely. "I shall take steps at once to have an invitation issued to you
for to-night; and to-morrow I shall be pleased to proceed as you may
suggest."
She nodded. He folded the note, replaced it in the envelope and
returned it to her with another deep bow. She drew her skirts about her
and sat down; he stood.
"It will be necessary for your name to appear on the invitation," the

ambassador went on to explain. "If you will give me your name I'll
have my secretary--"
"Oh, yes, my name," she interrupted gaily. "Why, Count, you
embarrass me. You know, really, I have no name. Isn't it awkward?"
"I understand perfectly, Madam," responded the count. "I should have
said a name."
She meditated a moment.
"Well, say--Miss Thorne--Miss Isabel Thorne," she suggested at last.
"That will do very nicely, don't you think?"
"Very nicely, Miss Thorne," and the ambassador bowed again. "Please
excuse me a moment, and I'll give my secretary instructions how to
proceed. There will be a delay of a few minutes."
He opened the door and went out. For a minute or more Miss Thorne
sat perfectly still, gazing at the blank wooden panels, then she rose and
went to the window again. In the distance, hazy in the soft night, the
dome of the capitol rose mistily; over to the right was the congressional
library, and out there where the lights sparkled lay Pennsylvania
Avenue, a thread of commerce. Miss Thorne saw it all, and suddenly
stretched out her arms with an all-enveloping gesture. She stood so for
a minute, then they fell beside her, and she was motionless.
Count di Rosini entered.
"Everything is arranged, Miss Thorne," he announced. "Will you go
with me in my automobile, or do you prefer to go alone?"
"I'll go alone, please," she answered after a moment. "I shall be there
about eleven."
The ambassador bowed himself out.
And so Miss Isabel Thorne came to Washington!

II
MR. CAMPBELL AND THE CABLE
Just as it is one man's business to manufacture watches, and another
man's business to peddle shoe-strings, so it was Mr. Campbell's
business to know things. He was a human card index, a governmental
ready reference posted to the minute and backed by all the tremendous
resources of a nation. From the little office in the Secret Service Bureau,
where he sat day after day, radiating threads connected with the huge
outer world, and enabled him to keep a firm hand on the diplomatic and
departmental pulse of Washington. Perhaps he came nearer knowing
everything that happened there than any other man living; and no man
realized more perfectly than he just how little of all of it he did know.
In person Mr. Campbell was not unlike a retired grocer who had shaken
the butter and eggs from his soul and settled back to enjoy a life of
placid idleness. He was a little beyond middle age, pleasant of face,
white of hair, and blessed with guileless blue eyes. His genius had no
sparkle to it; it consisted solely of detail and system and indefatigability,
coupled with a memory that was well nigh infallible. His brain was as
serene and orderly as a cash register; one almost expected to hear it
click.
He sat at his desk intently studying a cable despatch which lay before
him. It was in the Secret Service code. Leaning over his shoulder was
Mr. Grimm--the Mr. Grimm of the bureau. Mr. Grimm was an utterly
different type from his chief. He was younger, perhaps thirty-one or
two, physically well proportioned, a little above the average height,
with regular features and listless, purposeless eyes--a replica of a
hundred other young men who dawdle idly in the windows of their
clubs and watch the world hurry by. His manner was languid; his dress
showed fastidious care.
Sentence by sentence the bewildering intricacies of the code gave way
before the placid understanding of Chief Campbell, and word by word,

from the chaos of it, a translation took intelligible form upon a sheet of
paper under his right hand. Mr. Grimm, looking on, exhibited only a
most perfunctory interest in the extraordinary message he was reading;
the listless eyes narrowed a little, that was all. It was a special despatch
from Lisbon dated that morning, and signed simply "Gault."
Completely translated it