"So!" he pronounced. "We are all happy and contented. Madame my wife will wear her necklace to-night and once more rejoice. I shall have that thousand pounds in my pocket which is so necessary for a man like myself in this your great city of gallantry and happiness. And you, my dear Mr. Harvey Grimm, who played the burglar and assisted me in my little scheme, you, too, have a thousand pounds. So! Now that all is well, shall we visit the little lady down in the American Bar? Afterwards, I will take a taxi just to nowhere, and I will come back in another taxi from nowhere. I shall break into my wife's rooms, and she will hold out her arms to me, and she will have her necklace, and I have got my thousand pounds. _Enfin_! Let us descend." Harvey Grimm took up his hat and Aaron Rodd followed suit. "It seems to me," Aaron remarked, as he brought up the rear of the little procession, "that the only man who gets nothing out of this is Mr. Brodie!" _Chapter VII_ _The Infidelity of Jack Lovejoy_ Cresswell and Aaron Rodd were dining with Captain Brinnen and his sister at a corner table in the Milan Restaurant. Harvey Grimm had once more left them for an unknown destination, and they were all aware that the period of his absence would be this time more than ever one of strain. As though by general consent, however, the conversation did not touch once upon personal matters. They spoke a good deal of the war. Brinnen himself was roused by sundry reflections into a momentary bitterness, an expression of that peculiar irritation common to many of his country-people, notwithstanding their underlying gratitude. "You people in England," he declared, "you have no perceptions, no brains with which to combat a perfectly-developed system of espionage; nothing but an infinite complacency, an infinite stupidity. The people who hate you walk in your midst, unharmed. Even if they are pointed out, your officials shrug their shoulders and smile in a superior fashion. 'They can do us no harm,' they assure you. 'There are reasons why we prefer to leave them alone.' And you are at war, you people! Ah, if only you would realise it!" "You are quite right," Aaron Rodd admitted. "We have grown too accustomed to look upon espionage and secret service as the _bonne bouche_ of the novelist. I suppose they do exist."