moments ago, longing with a restrained, controlled longing for her
return.

As a matter of fact he himself had never had any feeling of dislike of
the Germans; on the contrary, he had struck up an acquaintance which had
almost become friendship with one of the younger members of the German
Embassy. And suddenly Mrs. Otway remembered it.

"Why, you yourself," she cried, "you yourself, James, have a German
friend--I mean that young Von Lissing. I liked him so much that
week-end you brought him down. What's happened to him? I suppose he's
gone?"

"Gone?" He turned and looked at her in the twilight. Really, Aunt Mary
was sometimes very silly. "Of course, he's gone! As a matter of fact he
left London ten days before his chief." And then he added reflectively,
perhaps with more a wish to tease her than anything else, "I've rather
wondered this last week whether Von Lissing's friendship with me was
regarded by him as a business matter. He sometimes asked me such odd
questions. Of course one has always known that Germans are singularly
inquisitive--that they are always wanting to find out things. I confess
it never struck me at the time that his questions meant anything more
than that sort of insatiable wish _to know_ that all Germans have."

"What sort of things did he ask you, James?" asked Mrs. Otway curiously.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing he said, and it astonished me very much
indeed. He asked me what attitude I thought our colonies would take if
we became embroiled in a European war! I reminded him of what they'd
done in South Africa fourteen years ago, and he said he thought the
world had altered a good deal since then, and that people had become
more selfish. But he never asked me any question concerning my own
special department. In those ways he quite played the game--not that it
would have been of any use, because of course I shouldn't have told him
anything. But he was certainly oddly inquiring about other
departments."

Then Rose came out again, and James Hayley tried to make himself
pleasant. Fortunately for himself he did not know how little he
succeeded. Rose found his patronising, tutor-like manner intolerable.

CHAPTER XII

Mrs. Hegner leant her woe-begone, tear-stained little face against the
centre window-pane of one of the two windows in her bedroom.

The room was a very large room. But she had never liked it, large,
spacious, and airy though it was. You see, it was furnished entirely