“You are a dear boy,” laughed that Madam Whitworth.  “Of course those specifications agree, for I worked a whole day over them; and I’m glad you didn’t tire your eyes out with them.  You know you are really a very beautiful creature and I think I’ll kiss you just once, purely for the pleasure of it.”  And I thereupon received a kiss upon my lips from the curled flower which was the mouth of that beautiful Madam Whitworth.

“Is it that the stupid Gouverneur Faulkner must very soon sign that paper that sends the many strong mules to carry food to the soldiers of France fighting in the trenches?” I asked of her as I made her comfortable in the hollow of my arm.

“If he doesn’t sign them in a very few days the deal is all off,” she answered me.  “Jeff has got his capital to put up from some Northern men who are—­are restless and—­and suspicious.  It must go through and immediately.”

“Then it must be accomplished immediately,” I answered her with decision.

“The agent of the French Government will be here on Tuesday and all of these preliminary papers must be signed before he can close the matter up finally.  I hope that the conference over those specifications this afternoon will be the last.  Are you sure you discovered no flaw over which the old General or the big stupid Governor can haggle?”

“I discovered not a flaw,” I answered her with a great positiveness.  “Do you say that it is soon that those representatives of my government come to make a last signing of the papers about the excellent mules to be sent from the great State of Harpeth to France who is at a war of death?  I had not heard of the nearness of the visit at the Capitol.”

“They don’t know it—­that is, Governor Faulkner does, but has told only me.  He sees things my way but of—­of course, he has to keep his councils from his Secretary of State for the time being.  And I’m telling you all about it, because—­because it is for France we plot and because I—­this is the way to say it.”  And with those wicked words, which involved the honor of the great Gouverneur Faulkner, she pressed her body close to mine and her lips upon my mouth.

For that caress of that wicked woman I had not sufficient endurance and I pushed her from me with roughness and sprang to my feet.

“It is not true, Madam Whitworth, that—­” I was exclaiming when I caught myself in the midst of my own betrayal, just as I was about to be shown into a plot which it was of much value to know.  And as my words ceased I stood and trembled before her wickedness.

“Do you know, Mr. Robert Carruthers, I do not entirely understand you,” she said with a great and beautiful calmness as she lighted a cigarette and looked at me trembling before her.  “You are a very bold young cavalier but you have the shrinking nature of—­shall I say?—­a French—­girl!”

As she spoke those words, which began in sarcasm but ended in a queer uncertain tone of suspicion, as if she had blundered on a reason to soothe her vanity for the recoil of my lips from hers, an ugly gleam shot from under her lowered lashes.