THE UNWILLING GUEST
House if Mr. Hammersley hadn’t taken it from your hand.”
She stared at him bewildered at his astounding omniscience, his devilish ingenuity. It frightened her, his cleverness and his pursuit of her. It seemed that she had never had a chance to get away from him. And yet his manner was so carefully studied, his attitude toward her so coldly impersonal that as a man once a lover she no longer feared him. If love of her had ever been in his heart, a greater passion had burned it out. She was grateful for this and prepared to measure her woman’s wit to his, thinking of Cyril. What would Cyril have her do?
“You mean that you will let them—the Germans—question me?”
“If they wish to do so.”
“But how will it benefit them, if the papers are already in their possession?”
“You will forgive me if I find it possible to doubt.”
She turned away from him and studied the lines of foam that streamed across the green troughs of the sea.
“I suppose that conversation between us two is superfluous. You distrust me and I”
“I think perhaps,” he said gravely, “that it would be pleasanter for both of us not to hear your sentiments toward me. Since the night of Lady Heathcote’s dinner in London you ceased to be Miss Doris Mather and became merely an official document. It is my duty to preserve it and deliver it safely.”
“I hope you may succeed. Otherwise the American Ambassador in Berlin may”
“Unfortunately,” he went on quietly, “the American Ambassador cannot be informed.”
165
