As it happened, Felice had been compelled to use one of those adamantine post-office pencils which you have to almost dig through the paper before you can get a legible impression; consequently on the next form on the pad there was a distinct tracing of several words. This Miss Chrysie tore off and appropriated. Then she wrote her own message and went to the counter with it. When they got out into the street Lady Olive said, a trifle frigidly: "My dear Chrysie, don't you think you did a rather improper thing in there? I distinctly saw you look over Felice's shoulder. You know, here, we consider a telegram as sacred as a letter." "Why, certainly!" replied Chrysie, flushing a little at the rebuke: "and so we do over our side: but still, all's fair in--well--in love and war, and I guess you won't think me quite so wicked when I tell you who that telegram's addressed to." "Really, Chrysie, I don't wish to know, and I don't think you ought to know," said Lady Olive, still more stiffly. "Well," replied Chrysie, defiantly, "I am sorry I riled you, but I do know it; and honestly, Olive, it's what's you and I and all of us ought to know." At this Lady Olive's curiosity appealed very strongly to her sense of the proprieties, and she said more amiably: "Do you really mean, Chrysie, that there's something serious in it--that, for instance, it has anything to do with the works?" "I don't know yet," said Chrysie, "but I've got a pretty good copy of it in my satchel, thanks to those awful pencils they give you to use in British telegraph offices. Anyhow, it was addressed to Count Valdemar, _Yacht Vlodoya_, Cherbourg; and Cherbourg's not on the way to the Baltic, is it? Let's go and have an ice and some cakes somewhere, so that I can read what is written." "That's very strange," said Lady Olive, "and the Count professed to be in such a hurry to get back to Petersburg. What on earth can he be doing at Cherbourg?" "I reckon poppa and the viscount would give something to know that, too," said Chrysie, as they turned into a confectioner's. They ordered ices, and Chrysie took the telegram form out of her satchel and unfolded it gingerly. Her pretty brows puckered over it for a few moments, as she slanted it this way and that to get the light on it. Then she put her elbows on the little marble table, and said in a low tone: "It's in French, and it tells the Count that the _Nadine_ starts this evening instead of to-morrow morning. The last word is 'Dépêchez,' and that's French for 'Make haste,' isn't it? Now, do you think I was right in doing a very improper thing--which, of course, it was?" "I'm afraid you were, Chrysie," said Lady Olive. "It's certainly very mysterious. How is the telegram signed?" "There isn't any signature," replied Chrysie. "Our friend's a bit too cute for that." "What on earth do you mean, Chrysie?" said Lady Olive, with a note of alarm in her voice. "What friend?"