"But the genial art of assassination--there's a business that requires a
calculating hand, my dear Monsieur Chauvenet!"

Chauvenet's hand went again to his lip.

"To be sure!" he ejaculated with zest.

"But alone--alone one can do little. For larger operations one
requires--I should say--courageous associates. Now in my affairs--would
you believe me?--I am obliged to manage quite alone."

"How melancholy!" exclaimed Chauvenet.

"It is indeed very sad!" and Armitage sighed, tossed his cigarette into
the smoldering grate and bade Chauvenet a ceremonious good night.

"Ah, we shall meet again, I dare say!"

"The thought does credit to a generous nature!" responded Armitage, and
passed out into the house.

CHAPTER IX

"THIS IS AMERICA, ME. ARMITAGE"

Lo! as I came to the crest of the hill, the sun on the heights had
arisen,
The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the mist on the vale;
Like a lark on the wing of the dawn I sang; like a guiltless one freed
from his prison,
As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw no one on my trail.

--L. Frank Tooker.

Spring, planting green and gold banners on old Virginia battle-fields,
crossed the Potomac and occupied Washington.

Shirley Claiborne called for her horse and rode forth to greet the
conqueror. The afternoon was keen and sunny, and she had turned
impatiently from a tea, to which she was committed, to seek the open. The
call of the outdoor gods sang in her blood. Daffodils and crocuses lifted
yellow flames and ruddy torches from every dooryard. She had pinned a
spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it spoke to her of
the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the
maples hovered like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the
incomparable gray obelisk climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer
earth. Washington, the center of man's hope, is also, in spring, the
capital of the land of heart's desire.

With a groom trailing after her, Shirley rode toward Rock Creek,--that
rippling, murmuring, singing trifle of water that laughs day and night at
the margin of the beautiful city, as though politics and statesmanship
were the hugest joke in the world. The flag on the Austro-Hungarian
embassy hung at half-mast and symbols of mourning fluttered from the
entire front of the house. Shirley lifted her eyes gravely as she passed.
Her thoughts flew at once to the scene at the house of the Secret