"I'm afraid there are liable to be some heavy penalties if--you do not respond to it promptly. Oh, dear, I have so enjoyed myself. I wish there were no Prussians in the world." "There are fewer than there were." "Yes, but so long as one remains there are--too many. I have had a communication from my father. It came to-day." "A letter?" Vita shook her head. "We do not communicate by letter. A messenger. A funny little old man who carries samples of buttons made in Austria. He represents a button firm, and sells millions of them over here. He happens to be my father's brother, although no one is allowed to guess the relationship. He is my father's most loyal--friend." "And he has brought you word of----" "Von Salzinger." Ruxton waited for her to continue. He was watching her with eyes that left him utterly incapable of forgetting her wonderful attraction. She was no longer merely a partner in the work he had marked out for himself. She was more. She was the woman of his early youthful dreams come to life, and every word that fell from her lips had for him a significance which appealed to the big soul within him apart from any verbal meaning it might convey. "You know father is the oddest mixture of simplicity and shrewdness I have ever known. He is utterly without fear, and his trust, to a point, is childlike. But when he is threatened with serious danger he is possessed of all the subtlety, it seems to me, of the whole world. That is perhaps why I do not gravely fear for his personal safety. His message to me illustrates his simplicity, but gives no inkling of that wonderful shrewdness which I know him to possess. Perhaps it is worded purposely so that I should miss its real significance. You see, father knows I am a coward, and does not like to distress me. Perhaps, on the other hand, he only sees in the development the dire result of his protest to Berlin. You see I have had the story of your visit to Borga from him weeks ago. But I see more in it, and I am right. That's why I warned you of 'bad news.'" "And the news?" Ruxton's imagination had been stirred by the girl's preliminary. "In brief it is that Captain-General von Salzinger has been relieved of his command at Borga, as a result of his attitude towards you and my father." "That is what your father assured me would happen. He assured me that in Berlin his power was almost unlimited--as regards Borga. I see little to trouble us in that." "No-o." Vita's whole attitude underwent a change. She became reflective, and her warm grey eyes grew cold with the bitterness of memory. After some silent moments she seemed to arrive at a decision. "To impress you with my point of view I--must make something like a confession," she went on presently.