“We’d be doing the thing I’m out to stop—­if it costs me all I have or am in this world.”

For a moment the man’s eyes forgot to smile, and Nancy was permitted to gaze on the great, absorbing purpose his manner had hitherto held concealed.  She was startled at the passionate denial, and robbed of all desire to reply.

“Here!” Bull set his elbows on the table and supported his chin on his hands.  “Get this.  Get it good, and all the time.  I wouldn’t work with the Skandinavia for all the dollars this country’s presses could print.  I’m not going to hand you the reason.  Some day, maybe when your folks have smashed me, or I’ve smashed them, I’ll tell you about it.  But I tell you this now, there’s no sort of business arrangement I ever figgered to enter into with Elas Peterman, and there’s no sort of thing in God’s world ever could, or would, induce me to come to any terms of his.”

Then his manner changed again, and his passionate moment became lost in a great laugh.

“Maybe you’ll want to know why I changed my plans so easily, and came along down in a hurry to see Peterman.  Why I seemed ready to fall for his proposition.  Well, I guess I won’t hand you the reason of that, either.  I’d like to, but I won’t.”  He shook his head and his laugh had gone again.  “Anyway, it served my purpose, and Peterman knows just how things stand—­and are going to stand—­between us.”

“Then it’s war?  Ruthless, implacable—­war?” There was awe in the girl’s tone and her lips were dry.  She sipped her wine quickly to moisten them, and set the glass down with a hand that was not quite steady.  Bull saw the signs of distress.

“Oh, yes, it’s war all right,” he said quietly.  “Maybe it’s ruthless, implacable.  But it’s part of the game.  Don’t worry a thing.  You’re in the enemy lines.  You’ve got your duty.  So far you’ve done your duty; and you’ve made good, and will get the reward you need.  Well, go right on doing that duty, and there isn’t a just creature on God’s earth that’ll have right to blame you.  I won’t blame you.  Go right on; and when it’s all through, I’ll be ready to sit here with you again, and talk and laugh over it, as we’ve been doing—­”

He broke off.  A frightened look had leapt into Nancy’s eyes.  She was no longer attending to him.  She was watching the tall, squarely military figure of a man moving down one of the aisles between the softly lit tables.  The man’s dark eyes were searching over the room, as he followed the head waiter conducting him to the table that had been reserved for him.  Bull turned and followed the direction of the girl’s gaze.  And as he did so he encountered the cold, unsmiling glance of the other man’s eyes.  It was only for an instant.  Then he turned back to the girl.

“Friend Peterman,” he said.

Nancy made a pretence of eating.

“Yes,” she said, without raising her eyes.

Nancy’s emotion was painfully obvious.  Bull realised it.  She was afraid.  Why?  A swift thought flashed through the man’s mind, to be followed by a feeling such as he had never known before.  Hitherto Elas Peterman had represented only a sufficiently worthy adversary who must be encountered and defeated.  Now, all in a moment, that was changed into something fiercer, more furiously human and abiding.