an in the throes of some great passion.

"We talk too intimately," she whispered, as the people began to file
in to take their places. "After luncheon we will take our coffee
in my coupe. Then, if you like, we will speak of these matters. I
have a headache. Will you order me some champagne? It is a terrible
thing, I know, to drink wine in the morning, but when one travels,
what can one do? Here come your bodyguard. They look at me as
though I had stolen you away. Remember we take our coffee together
afterwards. I am bored with so much traveling, and I look to you
to amuse me."

Von Behrling's journey was, after all, marked with sharp contrasts.
The kindness of the woman whom he adored was sufficient in itself
to have transported him into a seventh heaven. On the other hand,
he had trouble with his friends. Streuss drew him on one side at
Ostend, and talked to him plainly.

"Von Behrling," he said, "I speak to you on behalf of Kahn and
myself. Wine and women and pleasure are good things. We two, we
love them, perhaps, as you do, but there is a place and a time for
them, and it is not now. Our mission is too serious."

"Well, well!" Von Behrling exclaimed impatiently, "what is all this?
What do I do wrong? What have you to say against me? If I talk
with Mademoiselle Idiale, it is because it is the natural thing for
me to do. Would you have us three--you and Kahn and myself--travel
arm in arm and speak never a word to our fellow passengers? Would
you have us proclaim to all the world that we are on a secret
mission, carrying a secret document, to obtain which we have already
committed a crime? These are old-fashioned methods, Streuss. It
is better that we behave like ordinary mortals. You talk foolishly,
Streuss!"

"It is you," the older man declared, "who play the fool, and we will
not have it! Mademoiselle Idiale is a Servian and a patriot. She
is the friend, too, of Bellamy, the Englishman. She and he were
together last night."

"Bellamy is not even on the train," Von Behrling protested. "He
went north to Berlin. That itself is the proof that they know
nothing. If he had had the merest suspicion, do you not think that
he would have stayed with us?"

"Bellamy is very clever," Streuss answered. "There are too many of
us to deal with,--he knew that. Mademoiselle Idiale is clever,
too. Remember that half the trouble in life has come about through
false women.

"What is it that you w