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A camera was dragged out, a little flash of light shot up to the ceiling, and the attaches vanished as quickly as they had come. The Ambassador replaced the document in its envelope, handed a stick of sealing-wax and a candle to Lutchester, who leaned over and resealed the envelope. "The negative?" he enquired. "Will be kept under lock and key," the Ambassador promised.
If he comes, I will not see him. Ring the bell quickly. There it is finished!" A page-boy appeared, and she handed him the telegram. Then she turned a little pathetically to Lutchester. "Maurice was foolish very often foolish," she went on unsteadily, "but he has loved me, and a woman loves love so much. Now I shall be lonely. And yet, there is a great weight gone from my mind.
"While we are on that," Van Teyl interrupted, "I couldn't sleep a wink last night for trying to imagine where on earth that fellow Lutchester came in, and what his game was." "I have a headache this morning, trying to puzzle out the same thing," Pamela told him. "He seems such an ordinary sort of chap," Van Teyl continued thoughtfully.
He'll come a mucker, though, some day, trying. He'd take any outside chance. For a clever man he's the vainest thing I know." Lutchester smiled enigmatically as he followed the example of the others and rose to his feet. "Even in America, then," he observed, "your great men have their weaknesses."
"My notification is official." "So you think if we dined with you, the atmosphere to-night would be different?" she observed, with a sudden attempt at the recondite. Lutchester looked into her eyes without flinching. Pamela, to her annoyance, was worsted in the momentary duel. "We cannot always choose our atmosphere," he reminded her.
They made their very difficult way across a plot of ground from which a row of dilapidated cottages had been razed to the ground. The fog still hung around them and seemed to bring with it a curious silence, although the dying traffic from one of the main thoroughfares reached them in muffled notes. Lutchester climbed to the top of a pile of rubbish and then, turning around, held out his hand.
She touched his hand for a moment. "Well," she said, "I don't know whether I have been wise or not. Try and be back in less than an hour, if you can. I am going in alone." She left him, and Lutchester, after a few brief words with the Ambassador, hurried away to his task.
"Of course," Pamela declared, as they took their places, and she nodded a greeting to some friends around the table, "fate is throwing us together in the most unaccountable manner." "I accept its vagaries with resignation," Lutchester replied. "Besides, it is quite time we met again. You promised to show me New York, and I haven't seen you for days."
"Probably," he suggested, with a little glance around, "about themselves. We will follow their example. Will you marry me, please, Miss Van Teyl?" "We haven't even come to the ice yet," she sighed, "and you pass from high politics to flagrant personalities. Are you a sensationalist, Mr. Lutchester?" "Not in the least," he protested.
These things are not of my concern." Lutchester shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever you may be," he concluded, "and however much you may resent all that has happened, I know that you will wait. I might go direct to Washington, but I prefer to come to you, if it remains possible.
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