The Double Traitor | Page 2

you have served besides Paris?"
"I am thirty years old," he replied. "I started at Bukarest. From there I
went to Rome. Then I was second attaché at Paris, and finally, as you
see, here."
"And your people--they are English, of course?"
"Naturally," he answered. "My mother died when I was quite young,
and my father when I was at Eton. I have an estate in Hampshire which
seems to get on very well without me."
"And you really care about your profession? You have the real feeling
for diplomacy?"
"I think there is nothing else like it in the world," he assured her.
"You may well say that," she agreed enthusiastically. "I think you
might almost add that there has been no time in the history of Europe
so fraught with possibilities, so fascinating to study, as the present."
He looked at her keenly. It is the first instinct of a young diplomatist to
draw in his horns when a beautiful young woman confesses herself
interested in his profession.
"You, too, think of these things, then?" he remarked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"But naturally! What is there to do for a woman but think? We cannot
act, or rather, if we do, it is in a very insignificant way. We are
lookers-on at most of the things in life worth doing."

"I will spare you all the obvious retorts," he said, "if you will tell me
why you are gazing into that mirror so earnestly?"
"I was thinking," she confessed, "what a remarkably good-looking
couple we were."
He followed the direction of her eyes. He himself was of a recognised
type. His complexion was fair, his face clean-shaven and strong almost
to ruggedness. His mouth was firm, his nose thin and straight, his grey
eyes well-set. He was over six feet and rather slim for his height. But if
his type, though attractive enough, was in its way ordinary, hers was
entirely unusual. She, too, was slim, but so far from being tall, her
figure was almost petite. Her dark brown hair was arranged in perfectly
plain braids behind and with a slight fringe in front. Her complexion
was pale. Her features were almost cameo-like in their delicacy and
perfection, but any suggestion of coldness was dissipated at once by the
extraordinary expressiveness of her mouth and the softness of her deep
blue eyes. Norgate looked from the mirror into her face. There was a
little smile upon his lips, but he said nothing.
"Some day," she said, "not in the restaurant here but when we are alone
and have time, I should so much like to talk with you on really serious
matters."
"There is one serious matter," he assured her, "which I should like to
discuss with you now or at any time."
She made a little grimace at him.
"Let it be now, then," she suggested, leaning across the table. "We will
leave my sort of serious things for another time. I am quite certain that
I know where your sort is going to lead us. You are going to make love
to me."
"Do you mind?" he asked earnestly.
She became suddenly grave.

"Not yet," she begged. "Let us talk and live nonsense for a few more
weeks. You see, I really have not known you very long, have I, and this
is a very dangerous city for flirtations. At Court one has to be so careful,
and you know I am already considered far too much of a Bohemian
here. I was even given to understand, a little time ago, by a very great
lady, that my position was quite precarious."
"Does that--does anything matter if--"
"It is not of myself alone that I am thinking. Everything matters to one
in your profession," she reminded him pointedly.
"I believe," he exclaimed, "that you think more of my profession than
you do of me!"
"Quite impossible," she retorted mockingly. "And yet, as I dare say you
have already realised, it is not only the things you say to our statesmen
here, and the reports you make, which count. It is your daily life among
the people of the nation to which you are attached, the friends you
make among them, the hospitality you accept and offer, which has all
the time its subtle significance. Now I am not sure, even, that I am, a
very good companion for you, Mr. Francis Norgate."
"You are a very bad one for my peace of mind," he assured her.
She shook her head. "You say those things much too glibly," she
declared. "I am afraid that you have served a very long apprenticeship."
"If I have," he replied, leaning a little across the table, "it has been an
apprenticeship only, a probationary period during which one struggles
towards the real