“Well, it’s no use crying over spilt milk,” he retorted; “and besides, the papers you are going to hand me to-night will even up the score. It was a piece of luck, my running across Miss Falconer on the liner. Of course the minute I heard her name I knew what she was crossing for.” The dickens he did! “All I had to do was to follow her, and by the time we reached Bleau I had guessed enough to come ahead of her. But I’ll admit, Mr. Bayne, now it’s all over, it made me nervous to have you popping up at every turn! I began to think that you suspected me--that you were trailing me. If you had, you know, I shouldn’t have stood a chance on earth. You could have said a word to the first gendarme you met and had me laid by the heels and ended it. That was why I kept warning you off. But I needn’t have worried. You drank in everything I told you as innocent as a babe!” If he wanted revenge for my last remark, he had it. I looked at the girl beside me, so watchfully composed and fearless, then at the fixed, terrified glare of the motionless Marie-Jeanne. With a little rudimentary intelligence on my part this situation would have been spared us. “Yes,” I acknowledged bitterly; “I did.” “Except for that,” he grinned, “it went like clockwork. There wasn’t even enough danger in the thing to give it spice. Do you know, there isn’t a capital in Europe where I can’t get disguises, money, passports within twelve hours if I want them. Oh, you have a bit to learn about us, you people on the other side! I’ve crossed the ocean four times since the war started; I’ve been in London, Rome, Paris, Petrograd--pretty much everywhere. I’m getting homesick, though. The _laissez-passer_ I’ve picked up, or forged, no matter which, takes me straight through to the Front; and I’ve got friends even in the trenches. Before the Frenchies know it I’ll be across no-man’s-land and inside the German lines!” For a moment, as I listened, I was dangerously near admiring him. He was certainly exaggerating; but it couldn’t all be brag. The life of this spy of the first water, of international fame, must be rather marvelous; to defy one’s enemies with success, to journey calmly through their capitals, to stroll undetected among their agents of justice--were not things any fool could do. He carried his life in his hand, this Franz von Blenheim. He had courage; he even had genius along his special lines. His impersonation on the liner, shrewd, slangy, coarse-grained, patronizing, had been a triumph. Then, suddenly, I remembered a murdered boy beside whom I had knelt that morning, and my brief flicker of homage died.