The Firefly of France Part 10

She leaned impulsively across the table.

"Oh, Mr. Bayne, I knew it! You are angry about that wretched extra, and you have a right to be. Of course you thought it cowardly of me--yes, and ungrateful--to stand there without a word and let those officers question you. Mr. Bayne, if the worst had come to the worst, I should have spoken, I should, indeed; but I had to wait. I had to give myself every chance. It meant so much, so much! You had nothing to hide from them. You were certain to win through. And then, you seemed so undisturbed, so unruffled, so able to take care of yourself; I knew you were not afraid. It was different with me. If they began to suspect, if they learned who I was, I could never have entered France. This route through Italy was my one hope! I am so sorry. But still--"

Hitherto she had been appealing; but now she defied frankly. That tint of hers, like nothing but a wild rose, drove away her pallor; her gray eyes flamed.

"But still," she flashed at me, "you won't inform on me just for that?

I asked you to help me; you were free to refuse--and you agreed! Because it inconvenienced you a little, are you going to turn police agent?" Her red lips twisted proudly, scornfully. "I don't believe it, Mr. Bayne!"

I laughed shortly. She was indeed an artist.

"I wasn't thinking of that particular episode--" I began.

"But you did resent it. I saw it when you first joined me. And I was so glad to see you--to have the chance of thanking you!" she broke in, smoldering still.

"No, I didn't resent it. I didn't even blame you. If I blamed any one, Miss Falconer, it would certainly be myself. I've concluded I ought not to go about without a keeper. My gullibility must have amused you tremendously." I laughed.

"I never thought you gullible," she denied, suddenly wistful. "I thought you very generous and very chivalrous, Mr. Bayne."

This was carrying mockery too far.

"I am afraid," I said meaningly, "that the authorities at Gibraltar would take a less flattering view. For instance, if those Englishmen learned that I had refrained from telling them of our meeting at the St.

Ives, I should hear from them, I fancy."

Again her eyes were widening. What attractive eyes she had!

"The St. Ives?" she repeated wonderingly. "Why should that interest them? What do you mean?" Then, suddenly, she bent forward, propped her elbows on the table, and amazed me with a slow, astonished, comprehending smile. "I see!" she murmured, studying me intently. "You thought that I screened the man who hid those papers, that I crossed the ocean on--similar business, perhaps even that on this side I was to take the doc.u.ments from your trunk?"

"Naturally," I rejoined stiffly. "And I congratulate you. It was a brilliant piece of work; though, as its victim, I fail to see it in the rosiest light."

"I understand," she went on, still smiling faintly. "You thought I was--well--Look over yonder."

Her glance, seeking the opposite wall unostentatiously, directed my attention to a black-lettered, conspicuously posted sign:

BE SILENT!

BE MISTRUSTFUL!

THE EARS OF THE ENEMY ARE LISTENING!

Thus it shouted its warning, like the thousands of its kind that are scattered about the trains, the boats, the railroad stations, and all the public places of France.

"You thought I was the ears of the enemy, didn't you?" the girl was asking. "You thought I was a German agent. I might have guessed! Well, in that case it was kind of you not to hand me over to the Modane gendarmes. I ought to thank you. But I wasn't so suspicious when they searched your trunk and found the papers--I simply felt that they must be crazy to think you could be a spy."

I achieved a shrug of my shoulders, a polite air of incredulity; but, to tell the truth, I was a little less skeptical than I appeared. There was something in her manner that by no means suggested pretense. And she had said a true word about the occurrences on the _Re d'Italia_. If appearances meant facts, I myself had been proved guilty up to the hilt.

"Mr. Bayne," she was saying soberly, "I should like you to believe me--please! I am an American, and I have had cause lately to hate the Germans; all my bonds are with our own country and with France. There is some one very dear to me to whom this war has worked a cruel injustice.

I have come to try to help that person; and for certain reasons--I can't explain them--I had to come in secret or not at all. But I have done nothing wrong, nothing dishonorable. And so"--again her eyes challenged me--"I shall not sail from Bordeaux on the _Espagne_ on Sat.u.r.day; and you shall choose for yourself whether you will speak of me to the French police."

It was not much of an argument, regarded dispa.s.sionately; yet it shook me. With sudden craftiness I resolved to trap her if I could.

"I ought to tell them on the mere chance that they would send you home,"

I grumbled irritably. "You have no business here, you know, helping people and being suspected and pursued and outrageously annoyed by fools like me. Yes, and by other fools--and worse," I added with feigned sulphurousness, indicated Van Blarcom. "Miss Falconer, would you mind glancing at the third man on the right--the dark man who is staring at us--and telling me whether or not you ever saw him before you sailed?"

"I am sure I never did," she declared, knitting puzzled brows; "and yet on the _Re d'Italia_ he insisted that we had met. It frightened me a little. I wondered whether or not he suspected something. And every time I see him he watches me in that same way."

I was thawing, despite myself.

"There's one other thing," I ventured, "if you won't think me too impertinent: Did you ever hear of a man named Franz von Blenheim?"

"No," she said blankly; "I never did. Who is he?"

No birds out of that covert! If this was acting it was marvelous; there had not been the slightest flicker of confusion in her face.

"Oh, he isn't anybody of importance--just a man," I evaded. "Look here, Miss Falconer, you'll have to forgive me if you can. You shall stay in Paris, and I'll be as silent as the grave concerning you; but I'd like to do more than that. Won't you let me come and call? Really, you know, I'm not such a duffer as you have cause to think me. After we got acquainted you might be willing to trust me with this business, whatever it is. And then, if it's not too desperate, I have friends who could be of help to you." Such was the sop I threw to conscience, the bargain I struck between sober reason and the instinct that made me trust her against all odds. My theories must have been moonshine. Everything was all right, probably. But for the sake of prudence I ought to keep track of her. Besides, I wanted to.

Grat.i.tude and consternation, a most becoming mixture, were in her eyes.

She drew back a little.

"Oh, thank you, but that's impossible," she said uncertainly. "I have friends, too; but they can't help me. n.o.body can."

"Well," I admitted sadly, "I know the rudiments of manners. I can recognize a conge, but consider me a persistent boor. Come, Miss Falconer, why mayn't I call? Because we are strangers? If that's it, you can a.s.sure yourself at the emba.s.sy that I am perfectly respectable; and you see I don't eat with my knife or tuck my napkin under my chin or spill my soup."

Again that warm flush.

"Mr. Bayne!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Did I need an introduction to speak to you on the ship, to ask unreasonable favors of you, to make people think you a spy? If you are going to imagine such absurd things, I shall have to--"

"To consent? I hoped you might see it that way."

"Of course," she pondered aloud, "I may find good news waiting. If I do, it will change everything. I could see you once, at least, and let you know. I really owe you that, I think, when you've been so kind to me."

"Yes," I agreed bitterly, with a pang of conscience, "I've been very kind--particularly to-night!"

"Well, perhaps to-night you were just a little difficult." She was smiling, but I didn't mind; I rather liked her mockery now. "Still, even when you thought the worst of me, Mr. Bayne, you kept my secret. And--do you really wish to come to see me?"

"I most emphatically do."

She drew a card from her beaded bag, rummaged vainly for a pencil, ended by accepting mine, and scribbled a brief address.

"Then," she commanded, handing me the bit of pasteboard, "come to this number at noon to-morrow and ask for me. And now, since I'm not to go to prison, Mr. Bayne, I believe I am hungry. This is war bread, I suppose; but it tastes delicious. And isn't the saltless b.u.t.ter nice?"

"And here are the chicken and the salad arriving!" I exclaimed hopefully. "And there never was a French cook yet, however unspeakable otherwise, who failed at those."

What had come to pa.s.s I could not have told; but we were eating celestial viands, and my black b.u.t.terflies having fled away, a swarm of their gorgeous-tinted kindred were fluttering radiantly over Miss Esme Falconer's plate and mine.

CHAPTER XI