I saw his face soften and humanize at the information.  For once I had made a satisfactory response, it seemed.  But on the heels of my answer there rose the voice of Mr. McGuntrie, sensational, accusing, pitched almost at a shriek.

“Look here, lieutenant,” he was crying, “don’t you let that fellow fool you.  I asked him the first night out if he was an ambulance boy, and he denied it to me, up and down.  I thought all along he was too smart, hooting like he did at submarines.  Guess he knew one would pick him up all right if the rest of us did sink.”

“How about that, Mr. Bayne?” asked the Englishman, his uncordial self once more.

It was maddening.  One would have thought them all in league to prove me an atrocious criminal.

“Simply this,” I replied with the iciness of restrained fury, “that this gentleman has been the steamer’s pest ever since the night we sailed.  If I had answered his questions, every one, down to the ship’s cat, would have shared his knowledge within the hour.  I did not deny anything; I simply did not assent.  You are an officer in authority; I am answering you, though I protest strongly at your manner; but I don’t tell my affairs to prying strangers because we are cooped up on the same boat.”

“H’m.  If I were you I would keep my temper.”  He regarded me thoughtfully, and then with rapier-like rapidity shot two questions at my head.  “I say, Mr. Bayne, you’re positive about your parents not having German blood, are you?  And you are quite sure you were born in Paris, not in—­well, Prussia, suppose we say?”

“What the—­” I opportunely remembered the presence of Miss Esme Falconer.  “What do you mean?” I substituted less sulphurously, but with a glare.

He bent forward, tapping his forefinger against the desk, and his eyes were like gimlets boring into mine.

“I mean,” he enlightened me, his voice very hard of a sudden, “that a German agent is due to sail on this line, about this time, with certain papers, and that from one or two indications I’m not at all sure you are not the man.”

With sudden perspicacity, I realized that he took me for an emissary of the great Blenheim.  Exasperation overwhelmed me; would these farcical complications never cease?

“Good heavens, man,” I exclaimed with conviction, “you are crazy!  Look at me!  Use your common-sense!  What on earth is there about me to suggest a spy?”

“In a good spy there never is anything suggestive.”

By Jove, that was the very thing the secret-service man had said!

“You admit you were born abroad.  You claim to be bound for France, but you sail for Italy.  And you are rather a soldier’s type, tall, well set-up, good military carriage.  You’d make quite a showing in a field uniform, I should say.”

“In a fiddlestick!” I snapped, weary of the situation.  “So would you—­so would our friend the Italian reservist there.  I’m an average American, free, white, and twenty-one, with strong pro-Ally sympathies and a passport in perfect shape.  This is all nonsense, but of course there is something back of it.  What has been your real reason for deviling me ever since I entered this room?”