ake up to women in order to wheedle out their secrets."

"We have to do worse than that in defence of our country. We have to
plot and counterplot, to lie and deceive. But we do these things, and
you must do them too, if you would be of the Secret Service. Content
yourself. Think always that it is for _la belle France_ or for _le bel
Angleterre_, for _la grande Alliance_. You have qualifications
unusual; you are young, handsome, and French in manner and speech. You
are a soldier; it is for me to command, and for you to obey. Besides,
think you; if success comes to us, picture to yourself the desolation
of Dawson!"

"Desolating Dawson is more your fun than mine. I have no grudge to
work off on the old man. Since you command, I will obey. I will do my
best, but, to be quite frank, I do not like the job."

"But you will do it. I think that you English, slow to move, do best
those things which you like least. You despise the Secret Service,
what you call dirty spying, yet you do it to admiration--with a
courage and _sang froid_ most wonderful. You hate to begin a war, and
yet when you fight you are, of all people, the most unwilling to stop.
When we French and the Russians yonder have supped of this war to the
dregs, you English will just have begun to find your appetites. Stop?
you will cry. Make peace? Be content? Why, we have just got our second
wind! It will be the same with you, my friend. You begin reluctantly,
but when the chase becomes hot, you will be on fire with zest. You
will not trouble then that _vous vous faites crottes_."

"I will do my best; I cannot say more than that."

CHAPTER X

A PROGRESSIVE FRIENDSHIP

Neither Madame Gilbert nor Captain Rust are very communicative
concerning their adventures, until they begin to speak of that day
when first they met one another in the courtyard of the Savoy Hotel.
They both then become voluble. I rather gather--though I did not
cross-examine them at all closely--that they had been a good deal
bored. Their instructions were so very vague, and the best method of
carrying them out so far from clear to their ingenious minds, that
they wandered aimlessly about the resorts most affected by officers on
leave, spent much money, made a good many pleasant acquaintances, but
progressed not at all in their researches. Madame did not meet with
any French or Belgian flying officers who seemed likely to be German
agents, and Captain Rust failed to discover a siren wh