“Pretty well, thanks,” Norgate answered coolly.  “I am in it twice over now.  I’m marrying an Austrian lady shortly, very high up indeed in the Diplomatic Secret Service of her country.  Between us you may take it that we could read, if we chose, the secrets of the Cabinet Council from which you have just come.”

“Any fresh warnings, eh?”

Norgate turned and walked by his friend’s side.

“It is no use warning you,” he declared.  “You’ve a hide as thick as a rhinoceros.  Your complacency is bomb-proof.  You won’t believe anything until it’s too late.”

“Confoundedly disagreeable companion you make, Norgate,” the Cabinet Minister remarked irritably.  “You know quite as well as I do that the German scare is all bunkum, and you only hammer it in either to amuse yourself or because you are of a sensational turn of mind.  All the same—­”

“All the same, what?” Norgate interrupted.

Hebblethwaite took his young friend’s arm and led him into his club.

“We will take an aperitif in the smoking-room,” he said.  “After that I will look in my book and see where I am lunching.  It is perhaps not the wisest thing for a Cabinet Minister to talk in the street.  Since the Suffragette scares, I have quite an eye for a detective, and there has been a fellow within a few yards of your elbow ever since you spoke to me.”

“That’s all right,” Norgate reassured him.  “Let’s see, it’s Tuesday, isn’t it?  I call him Boko.  He never leaves me.  My week-end shadowers are a trifle less assiduous, but Boko is suspicious.  He has deucedly long ears, too.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Hebblethwaite demanded, as they sat down.

“The fact of it is,” Norgate explained, “they don’t altogether trust me in my new profession.  They give me some important jobs to look after, but they watch me night and day.  What they’d do if I turned ’em up, I can’t imagine.  By-the-by, if you do hear of my being found mysteriously shot or poisoned or something of that sort, don’t you take on any theory as to suicide.  It will be murder, right enough.  However,” he added, raising his glass to his lips and nodding, “they haven’t found me out yet.”

“I hear,” Hebblethwaite muttered, “that the bookstalls are loaded with this sort of rubbish.  You do it very well, though.”

“Oh!  I am the real thing all right,” Norgate declared.  “By-the-by, what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” Hebblethwaite replied.  “When you come to think of it, sitting here and feeling the reviving influence of this remarkably well-concocted beverage, I can confidently answer ‘Nothing.’  And yet, a few minutes ago, I must admit that I was conscious of a sensation of gloom.  You know, Norgate, you’re not the only idiot in the world who goes about seeing shadows.  For the first time in my life I begin to wonder whether we haven’t got a couple of them among us.  Of course, I don’t take any notice of Spencer Wyatt.  It’s his job.  He plays the part of popular hero—­National Anthem, God Save the Empire, and all that sort of thing.  He must keep in with his admirals and the people, so of course he’s always barking for ships.  But White, now.  I have always looked upon White as being absolutely the most level-headed, sensible, and peace-adoring Minister this country ever had.”