he reply hours ago."--("Also," he might have
added, "our State Department--only it may not be able to translate it.")
"I should say, Mrs. Clephane, that your duty is done now, unless the
Marquis calls on you for assistance. You have performed your part--"

"Very poorly," she interjected.

"On the contrary, you have performed it exceptionally well. You, a
novice at this business, prevented the letter from falling into
Spencer's hands, and so you blocked that part of their game. No, no,
Mrs. Clephane, I regard you as more than acquitted of blame."

"You're always nice, Mr. Harleston!" she responded.

"Nice expresses very inadequately what I wish to be to you," he said
slowly.

Again the flush came--and her glance wavered, and fled away.

"Meanwhile," he went on, "I am quite content to know that you think me
nice to you."

She sprang up and moved out of distance, saying as she did so, with a
ravishing smile:

"Nice is comprehended in other pleasant--adjectives."

"It is?" said he, advancing slowly toward her.

"But you, Mr. Harleston, are forbidden to guess how pleasant, or the
particular adjective, until you're permitted."

"And you'll permit me to guess some day--and soon."

"Maybe so--and maybe not!" she laughed. "It will depend on the both of
us--and the business in hand. Diplomats, you are well aware, are given
to very disingenuous ways and methods."

"In diplomacy," he appended. "A diplomat, as a rule, is merely a man of
a little wider experience and more mature judgment--the American
diplomat alone excepted, save in the secret service. Therefore he knows
his mind, and what he wants; and he usually can be depended upon to keep
after it until he gets it."

"And to want it after he gets it?" she inquired.

"Don't be cynical," he cautioned.

"I'm not. The world looks good to me, and I try to look good to the
world."

"You have succeeded!" he exclaimed.

"I've about-faced," she went on. "Now I presume everybody trustworthy
until it's proven otherwise. Time was, and not so long ago, when I was
more than cynical; and I found it didn't pay in a woman. A man may be
cynical and get away with it; a woman only injures her complexion, and
makes trouble for herself. Me for the happy spirit, and side-stepping
the bumps."

"Good girl!" Harleston applauded--thinking of her unhappy spirit, and
the hard bumps she must have endured during the time that the late
deceased Clephane was whirling to an aeroplane fin