“Which may be true,” Harleston smiled, “but it is entirely safe to assume that he is acting precisely as though the letter was of the most immediate importance.  You may be sure that the moment you left him he dispatched a cable to Paris reciting the facts, so that the Foreign Office could judge whether to cable the letter or to dispatch it by messenger.  And he has the reply hours ago.”—­("Also,” he might have added, “our State Department—­only it may not be able to translate it.”) “I should say, Mrs. Clephane, that your duty is done now, unless the Marquis calls on you for assistance.  You have performed your part—­”

“Very poorly,” she interjected.

“On the contrary, you have performed it exceptionally well.  You, a novice at this business, prevented the letter from falling into Spencer’s hands, and so you blocked that part of their game.  No, no, Mrs. Clephane, I regard you as more than acquitted of blame.”

“You’re always nice, Mr. Harleston!” she responded.

“Nice expresses very inadequately what I wish to be to you,” he said slowly.

Again the flush came—­and her glance wavered, and fled away.

“Meanwhile,” he went on, “I am quite content to know that you think me nice to you.”

She sprang up and moved out of distance, saying as she did so, with a ravishing smile: 

“Nice is comprehended in other pleasant—­adjectives.”

“It is?” said he, advancing slowly toward her.

“But you, Mr. Harleston, are forbidden to guess how pleasant, or the particular adjective, until you’re permitted.”

“And you’ll permit me to guess some day—­and soon.”

“Maybe so—­and maybe not!” she laughed.  “It will depend on the both of us—­and the business in hand.  Diplomats, you are well aware, are given to very disingenuous ways and methods.”

“In diplomacy,” he appended.  “A diplomat, as a rule, is merely a man of a little wider experience and more mature judgment—­the American diplomat alone excepted, save in the secret service.  Therefore he knows his mind, and what he wants; and he usually can be depended upon to keep after it until he gets it.”

“And to want it after he gets it?” she inquired.

“Don’t be cynical,” he cautioned.

“I’m not.  The world looks good to me, and I try to look good to the world.”

“You have succeeded!” he exclaimed.

“I’ve about-faced,” she went on.  “Now I presume everybody trustworthy until it’s proven otherwise.  Time was, and not so long ago, when I was more than cynical; and I found it didn’t pay in a woman.  A man may be cynical and get away with it; a woman only injures her complexion, and makes trouble for herself.  Me for the happy spirit, and side-stepping the bumps.”

“Good girl!” Harleston applauded—­thinking of her unhappy spirit, and the hard bumps she must have endured during the time that the late deceased Clephane was whirling to an aeroplane finish.  “You’re a wonder, Mrs. Clephane,” he ended.