s very hour," he added,
suddenly, and paused in his walk towards the door.

"But I want no triangular tea-parties," he continued to reflect....
"Well, there'll be work to do at the Foreign Office, that's sure.
France, Austria, Russia can spit out their venom now and look to their
mobilization. And won't Kaiser William throw up his cap if Dr. Jim gets
caught! What a mess it will be! Well--well--well!"

He sighed, and went on his way brooding darkly; for he knew that this
was the beginning of a great trial for England and all British people.

CHAPTER III

A DAUGHTER OF TYRE

"Monsieur voleur!"

Jasmine looked at him again, as she had done the night before at the
opera, standing quite confidentially close to him, her hand resting in
his big palm like a pad of rose-leaves; while a delicate perfume
greeted his senses. Byng beamed down on her, mystified and eager, yet
by no means impatient, since the situation was one wholly agreeable to
him, and he had been called robber in his time with greater violence
and with a different voice. Now he merely shook his head in humorous
protest, and gave her an indulgent look of inquiry. Somehow he felt
quite at home with her; while yet he was abashed by so much delicacy
and beauty and bloom.

"Why, what else are you but a robber?" she added, withdrawing her hand
rather quickly from the too frank friendliness of his grasp. "You ran
off with my opera-cloak last night, and a very pretty and expensive one
it was."

"Expensive isn't the word," he rejoined; "it was unpurchasable."

She preened herself a little at the phrase. "I returned your overcoat
this morning--before breakfast; and I didn't even receive a note of
thanks for it. I might properly have kept it till my opera cloak came
back."

"It's never coming back," he answered; "and as for my overcoat, I
didn't know it had been returned. I was out all the morning."

"In the Row?" she asked, with an undertone of meaning.

"Well, not exactly. I was out looking for your cloak."

"Without breakfast?" she urged with a whimsical glance.

"Well, I got breakfast while I was looking."

"And while you were indulging material tastes, the cloak hid itself--or
went out and hanged itself?"

He settled himself comfortably in the huge chair which seemed made
especially for him. With a rare sense for details she had had this very
chair brought from the library beyond, where her stepmother, in full
view, was writing letters. He l