not be to her liking. So I
spoke the truth.

'I must tell you that there's another guest here tonight. I reckon
he's feeling pretty uncomfortable. At present he's trussed up on a
shelf in that cupboard.'

She did not trouble to look round.

'Is he dead?' she asked calmly.

'By no means,' I said, 'but he's fixed so he can't speak, and I guess
he can't hear much.'

'He was the man who brought you this?' she asked, pointing to the
envelope on the table which bore the big blue stamp of the Ministry of
War.

'The same,' I said. 'I'm not perfectly sure of his name, but I think
they call him Rasta.'

Not a flicker of a smile crossed her face, but I had a feeling that the
news pleased her.

'Did he thwart you?' she asked.

'Why, yes. He thwarted me some. His head is a bit swelled, and an
hour or two on the shelf will do him good.'

'He is a powerful man,' she said, 'a jackal of Enver's. You have made
a dangerous enemy.'

'I don't value him at two cents,' said I, though I thought grimly that
as far as I could see the value of him was likely to be about the price
of my neck.

'Perhaps you are right,' she said with serious eyes. 'In these days no
enemy is dangerous to a bold man. I have come tonight, Mr Hanau, to
talk business with you, as they say in your country. I have heard well
of you, and today I have seen you. I may have need of you, and you
assuredly will have need of me....'

She broke off, and again her strange potent eyes fell on my face. They
were like a burning searchlight which showed up every cranny and crack
of the soul. I felt it was going to be horribly difficult to act a
part under that compelling gaze. She could not mesmerize me, but she
could strip me of my fancy dress and set me naked in the masquerade.

'What came you forth to seek?' she asked. 'You are not like the stout
American Blenkiron, a lover of shoddy power and a devotee of a feeble
science. There is something more than that in your face. You are on
our side, but you are not of the Germans with their hankerings for a
rococo Empire. You come from America, the land of pious follies, where
men worship gold and words. I ask, what came you forth to seek?'

As she spoke I seemed to get a vision of a figure, like one of the old
gods looking down on human nature from a great height, a figure
disdainful and passionless, but with its own magnificence. It kindled
my imagination, and I answered with the stuff I had often co