The Pawns Count Part 32

"Interest grows with mystery," Lutchester remarked complacently. "Let us hope that I am promoted in your mind."

"Well, I am not at all sure. Of course, I am not an Englishman, so it is of no particular interest to me, but if you really came over here on important affairs, I am not sure that I approve of your playing golf the day after your arrival."

"That, perhaps, was thoughtless," he admitted, "but one gets so short of exercise on board ship."

"Of course," Pamela observed tentatively, "I'd forgive you even now if you'd only be a little more frank with me."

"I am prepared to be candour itself," he a.s.sured her.

"Tell me," she begged, "the whole extent of your mission in America?"

He glanced around.

"If we were alone," he replied, "I might court indiscretion so far as to tell you."

"Then we will leave the answer to that question until after dinner,"

she said.

She talked to her left-hand neighbour for a few moments, and Lutchester followed suit. They turned to one another again, however, at the first opportunity.

"I have conceived," she told him, "a great admiration for Mr. Oscar Fischer."

"A very able man," Lutchester agreed.

"He is not only that," Pamela continued, "but he is a man with large principles and great ideas."

"Principles!" Lutchester murmured.

"Of course, you don't like him," Pamela went on, "and I don't wonder at it. He is thoroughly German, isn't he?"

"Almost prejudiced, I'm afraid," Lutchester a.s.sented.

"Don't be silly," Pamela protested. "Why, he's German by birth, and although you English people are much too pig-headed to see any good in an enemy, I think you must admit that the way they all hang together-- Germans, I mean, all over the world--is perfectly wonderful."

"There have been a few remarks of the same sort," Lutchester reminded her, "about the inhabitants of the British Empire--Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, for instance."

"As a matter of fact," Pamela admitted generously, "I consider that your Colonials understand the word patriotism better than the ordinary Englishman. With them, as with the Germans, it is almost a pa.s.sionate impulse. Your hearts may be in the right places, but you always give one the impression of finding the whole thing rather a bore."

"Well, so it is," Lutchester insisted. "Who wants to give up a very agreeable profession and enter upon a career of bloodshed, abandon all one's habits, and lose most of one's friends? No, we are honest about that, at any rate! Germany may be enjoying this war. We aren't."

"What was your profession?" Pamela inquired.

"Diplomacy," Lutchester confided. "I intended to become an amba.s.sador."

"Do you think you have the requisite gifts?"

"What are they?"

"Secrecy, subtlety, caution, and highly-developed intelligence," she replied. "How's that?"

"All those gifts," he a.s.sured her, "I possess."

She fanned herself for a moment and looked at him.

"We are not a modest race ourselves," she said, "but I think you can give us a lead. By the bye, were you playing golf with Senator Hamblin by accident the other afternoon?"

"You mean the old Johnny down at Baltusrol?" he asked coolly. "I picked him up wandering about by the professionals' shed."

"Did you talk politics with him?"

"We ga.s.sed a bit about the war," Lutchester admitted cheerfully.

Pamela laughed. She leaned a little forward. The buzz of conversation now was insistent all around them.

"Of you two," she whispered, "I prefer Fischer."

Lutchester considered the matter for some time.

"Well, there's no accounting for tastes," he said presently. "I shouldn't have thought him exactly your type."

"He may not be," Pamela confessed, "but at least he has the courage to speak what is in his mind."

Lutchester smiled.

"So Fischer has taken you into his confidence, has he?" he murmured.

"Well, now, that seems queer to me. I should have thought your interests would have lain the other way."

"As an individual?"

"As an American."

"I am not wholly convinced of that."

"Come," he protested, "what is the use of a friend from whom you are separated by an unnegotiable s.p.a.ce?"

"What unnegotiable s.p.a.ce?"

"The Atlantic."

"And why is the Atlantic unnegotiable?"

"Because of a little affair called the British fleet," Lutchester pointed out.

"There is also," she reminded him drily, "a German fleet, and they haven't met yet."

"Ah! I had almost forgotten there was such a thing," he murmured.

"Where do they keep it?"

"You know. You aren't nearly so stupid as you pretend to be," she said, a little impatiently. "I should like you so much better if you would be frank with me."