“That is true, my young friend,” Selingman confessed.  “We have spoken together, man to man, heart to heart.  I have tried to show you that even though we should stand with sword outstretched across the seas, yet in the hearts of our people there dwells a real affection, real good-will towards your country.  I think that I have convinced you.  I have come, indeed, to have a certain amount of confidence in you.  That I have already proved.  But your news to-day alters much.  There are grades of that society which you have joined, rings within rings, as you may well imagine.  I see the prospect before me now of making much greater and more valuable use of you.  It was your brain, and a certain impatience with the political conduct of your country, which brought you over to our side.  Why should not that become an alliance—­an absolute alliance?  Your interests are drawn into ours.  You have now a real and great reason for throwing in your lot with us.  Let me look at you.  Let me think whether I may not venture upon a great gamble.”

Norgate did not flinch.  He appeared simply a little puzzled.  Selingman’s blue, steel-like eyes seemed striving to reach the back of his brain.

“All the things that we accomplish in my country,” the latter continued, “we do by method and order.  We do them scientifically.  We reach out into the future.  So far as we can, we foresee everything.  We leave little to chance.  Yet there are times when one cannot deal in certainties.  Young man, the news which you have told us this afternoon has brought us to this pitch.  I am inclined to gamble—­to gamble upon you.”

“Is there any question of consulting me in this?” Norgate asked coolly.

Selingman brushed the interruption on one side.

“I now make clear to you what I mean,” he continued.  “You have joined my little army of helpers, those whom I have been able to convince of the justice and reasonableness of Germany’s ultimate aim.  Now I want more from you.  I want to make of you something different.  More than anything in the world, for the furtherance of my schemes here, I need a young Englishman of your position and with your connections, to whom I can give my whole confidence, who will act for me with implicit obedience, without hesitation.  Will you accept that post, Francis Norgate?”

“If you think I am capable of it,” Norgate replied promptly.

“You are capable of it,” Selingman asserted.  “There is only one grim possibility to be risked.  Are you entirely trustworthy?  Would you flinch at the danger moment?  Before this afternoon I hesitated.  It is your alliance with the Baroness which gives me that last drop of confidence which was necessary.”

“I am ready to do your work,” Norgate said.  “I can say no more.  My own country has no use for me.  My own country seems to have no use for any one at all just now who thinks a little beyond the day’s eating and drinking and growing fat.”