ers, lying inert on the cushion, his fingers
closing softly upon it. She did not withdraw it, but lowered her head.

"Was it in connection with that your man was arrested in Boston?"

Koltsoff laughed.

"They thought to connect him with it. But--" he pressed Anne's
fingers, "the connecting link happened to be in your--jewelry safe."

Anne, thrilled at the part she was playing in the mysterious diplomatic
episode, laughed softly. Somehow it all appeared bigger even than
dodging under battleships' bows,--certainly more subtle. Koltsoff
gazed at her admiringly.

"My dear Miss Wellington," he said, "do you realize more and more, that
of which I spoke to-day--your fitness for the international sphere?
Your beauty--your coolness--the temper of your spirit--your ability to
sway strong men, as you have swayed me--do you appreciate all? Are you
proud that you have swayed me?"

"Prince Koltsoff!" Anne's voice rang with doubt and anguish and
yet--pride.

She was tired and spent with the day and as his arm stole, almost
snake-like, about her waist, she raised a nerveless hand, plucked
feebly to remove the fingers pressing into her side, and then let her
hand fall to the cushion.

His head was bending over her, his face was very close. Some vivid
instinct told her that he must not kiss her. She tried to struggle but
she could not. The next instant she was living that epoch which
innocence may only know ere it perishes--a man's lips making free with
eyes and mouth and cheeks. She lay now, half in his arms, looking at
him with wide, startled eyes, her lips parched.

"Anne," he bent forward to kiss her again, but she turned her head away
and then, again, her unchanging eyes sought his face. "What I have
done--what I have meant, I shall make clear to your parents to-morrow.
To you I can say nothing now. You--ah, of course know the European
custom."

"Please let me go." There was a tired sob in Anne's voice.

"But I have not yet told you that which I wish to say." Anne tore from
his arm and started up.

"You haven't! Oh, very well. I am listening."

"You were out with the torpedo boats tonight. You were upon the boat
with Lieutenant Armitage."

"I--" Anne paused. Armitage, without attempting to obtain promises of
secrecy as to the mission of the flotilla, had pointed out that all
information of the sort was absolutely confidential and that above all
the ability of a torpedo boat destroyer to get withi