s he wrote, he
said, cordially: "I hope your husband is all right again." The woman did
not reply. So long was she in answering that they looked up at her. She
was chilled with waiting in the cold rain. She had been on a strain, and
her lips began to tremble. To hide that fact, and with no intention of
being dramatic, she raised her hand, and over her face dropped a black
veil.

The officer half rose.

"You should have told us at once, madam," he said. He jerked his head at
the detective and toward the door, and the detective picked up her
valise, and asked her please to follow. At the door she looked back, and
the row of officials, like one man, bent forward.

One of them was engaged in studying my passport. It had been viseed by
the representatives of all the civilized powers, and except the Germans
and their fellow gunmen, most of the uncivilized. The officer was
fascinated with it. Like a jig-saw puzzle, it appealed to him. He turned
it wrong side up and sideways, and took so long about it that the
others, hoping there was something wrong, in anticipation scowled at me.
But the officer disappointed them.

"Very interestin'," he said. "You ought to frame it."

Now that I was free to leave the detention camp I perversely felt a
desire to remain. Now that I was free, the sight of all the other
passengers kicking each other's heels and being herded by Tommies gave
me a feeling of infinite pleasure. I tried to express this by forcing
money on the detective, but he absolutely refused it. So, instead, I
offered to introduce him to a King's messenger. We went in search of the
King's messenger. I was secretly alarmed lest he had lost himself. Since
we had left the Balkans together he had lost nearly everything else. He
had set out as fully equipped as the white knight, or a "temp. sec.
lieutenant." But his route was marked with lost trunks, travelling-bags,
hat-boxes, umbrellas, and receipts for reservations on steamships,
railroad-trains, in wagon-lits, and dining-cars.

A King's messenger has always been to me a fascinating figure. In
fiction he is resourceful, daring, ubiquitous. He shows his silver
staff, with its running greyhound, which he inherits from the days of
Henry VIII, and all men must bow before it. To speed him on his way,
railroad-carriages are emptied, special trains are thrown together,
steamers cast off only when he arrives. So when I found for days I
was to travel in company with a King's messenge