That shocked Cynthia back to Ruth again; she stood in the center of the room, turning about slowly and with muscles pulling with queer, jerky little tugs. The message had purported to be a friendly telephone call from some woman who knew her intimately; but Ruth quickly estimated that that was merely what the message was meant to appear. For if the woman really were so intimate a friend of Cynthia Gail, she would not have made so short and casual a conversation with a girl whom she could not have seen or communicated with since Sunday. No; it was plain that the Germans again were aiding her; plain that they had learned--perhaps from Hubert Lennon waiting for her in the hotel lobby--about her afternoon engagement; plain, too, that they were ordering her to go. A new and beautiful yellow dress, suitable for afternoon wear, was among the garments in the closet; there was an underskirt and stockings and everything else. Ruth was Cynthia again as she slipped quickly out of her street dress, took off shoes and stockings and redressed completely. She found a hat which evidently was to be worn with the yellow dress. So completely was she Cynthia now, as she bent for a final look in the glass, that she did not think that she looked better than Ruth Alden ever had; she wondered, instead, whether she looked as well as she should. She found no coat which seemed distinctly for the afternoon; so she put on the coat which she had bought. She carried her knitting bag with her as before--it was quite an advantage to have a receptacle as capacious as a knitting bag which she could keep with her no matter where she went. Descending to the ground floor, she found about the same number and about the same sort of people passing back and forth or lounging in the lobby. Hubert Lennon was there and he placed himself beside her as she surrendered her room key. “You’re perfectly corking, Cynthia!” he admired her, evidently having decided during his wait that he could say her name. Color--the delicate rose blush in her clear skin which Sam Hilton so greatly liked--deepened on her cheek. “All ready now, Hubert,” she said; her use of his name greatly pleased him and he grasped her arm, unnecessarily, to guide her out. “Just a minute,” she hesitated as she approached the telegraph desk. “I’ve a wire to send to father.” The plan had popped out with the impulse which had formed it; she had had no idea the moment before of telegraphing to Charles Gail. But now the ecstasy of the daring game--the game beginning here in small perils, perhaps, but also perhaps in great; the game which was swiftly to lead, if she could make it lead, across the sea and through France into Switzerland and then into the land of the enemy upon the Rhine--had caught her; and she knew instinctively how to reply to that as yet uncomprehended telegram from her father.