asy, brilliant. I made an invention--a little electric screw
which steered a balloon ... sometimes..." He laughed, a mirthless
laugh, and looked at me. All the color had gone from his face.

"There was a woman--" I turned partly towards him.

"We met first at the British Embassy,... then elsewhere,...
everywhere.... We skated together at the club in the Bois at that
celebrated fete,... you know?--the Emperor was there--"

"I know," I said.

He looked at me dreamily, passed his hand over his face, and went on:

"Somehow we always talked about military balloons. And that evening
... she was so interested in my work ... I brought some little
sketches I had made--"

"I understand," I said.

He looked at me miserably. "She was to return the sketches to me at
Calman's--the fashionable book-store,... next day.... I never thought
that the next day was to be Sunday.... The book-stores of Paris are
not open on Sunday--_but the War Office is_."

I began to put on my coat.

"And the sketches were asked for?" I suggested--"and you naturally
told what had become of them?"

"I refused to name her."

"Of course; men of our sort can't do that."

"I am not of your sort--you know it."

"Oh yes, you are, my friend--and the same kind of fool, too. There's
only one kind of man in this world."

He looked at me listlessly.

"So they sent you to a fortress?" I asked.

"To New Caledonia,... four years.... I was only twenty, Scarlett,...
and ruined.... I joined Byram in Antwerp and risked the tour through
France."

After a moment's thought I said: "In your opinion, what nation
profited by your sketches? Italy? Spain? Prussia? Bavaria? England?...
Perhaps Russia?"

"Do you mean that this woman was a foreign spy?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps she was only careless, or capricious,... or
inconstant.... You never saw her again?"

"I was under arrest on Sunday. I do not know.... I like to believe
that she went to the book-store on Monday,... that she made an
innocent mistake,... but I never knew, Scarlett,... I never knew."

"Suppose you ask her?" I said.

He reddened furiously.

"I cannot.... If she did me a wrong, I cannot reproach her; if she
was innocent--look at me, Scarlett!--a ragged, ruined mountebank in a
travelling circus,... and she is--"

"An honest woman that a man might care for?"

"That is ... my belief."

"If she is," I said, "go and ask her about those drawings."

"But if she is not,... I cannot tell _you_!"