Froissart, to whom Rust reported, gleaned some consolation from the failure of his agent. "This wonder of a woman, of whom I must instantly make the honourable acquaintance, has saved the detested Dawson from the deeps of humiliation. But we have scored off him most surely. He has shown himself to be a blundering, conceited English pig, and I will protest to the Chief that never again must he keep me in ignorance of his projects. I shall laugh at him; all our people here will laugh. I shall be revenged. _Conspuez_ Dawson!" "Don't be too hard on Dawson," urged Rust. "Madame Gilbert thinks a lot of him, and would be pained if he suffered discredit through any fault of hers." "Fault!" shouted the gallant Froissart. "_La belle Madame_ is _sans faute_, peerless, a prodigy of skill and discretion! She is superb. If she implores me to spare the man Dawson, then I will consent, though my heart is rent in fragments. As for you, _mon ami_, I fear that in her hands you were not a figure of admiration. She twisted you about her pretty fingers like a skein of wool. I do not think that you are, what you call, cut out for the Secret Service." "That is quite my own opinion," assented he gloomily. PART III _TO SEE IS TO BELIEVE_ CHAPTER XII DAWSON PRESCRIBES The mind of Dawson has the queerest limitations. He is entirely free from any sense of proportion. If I wrote of those incidents which he pressed upon me, this book would be intolerably dull. He sees no interest in any episode which is not Dawson, Dawson, all the time. The emotion which was aroused in the hearts of Cary and myself by Trehayne's letter caused Dawson no small anxiety. He feared lest in rendering this episode I should turn the limelight upon Trehayne and leave the private of Marines in the shadows. Which is precisely what I have done. From his "sick bed" he sent me a letter explaining that his own honourable weakness of sympathy with an enemy spy was physical, not moral--reprehensible failing induced by lack of sleep. He laboured to convince me that the spirit of Dawson in the full flush of health was of a frightfulness wholly Prussian in its logical completeness. But I smiled, went my own way, and Dawson, when he comes to read this book, can swear as loudly as he pleases.