She pleaded subtly, her head on his shoulder, her deep-blue eyes looking up into his, her breath on his cheek. Surely he and she were one. One heart, one mind, one soul. Individually each was the other’s complement. He could work out vast schemes—the most junior of Third Grade Staff Officers glowed at the flattery—and she could see, not that they were put into execution, but that wicked and irresponsible gossip should not bring them to naught. In her woman’s wheedling she had no ulterior purpose in view. She was not the political adventuress unscrupulously seducing enamoured youth to the betrayal of his country. It was all insatiable curiosity and lust for secret power. And, as far as lay in her nature, she loved the boy; she loved him with a sense of possession; she craved him wholly, his devotion, his mind, his knowledge. His physical self was hers, at a moment’s call. She played with that certainty in delicious trepidation. It invested their relationship in a glamour unknown, mysterious, in spite of her married estate. But the long-atrophied romantic in her sprang to sudden life and prevailed. So subtly did she plead that he was unaware of her overmastering desire. Secure in her love and her loyalty, and confident in the twin hearts and souls, he told her what he knew; but the numerical and topographical details, proving too confusing for her, he laughed and went over to his desk and, with her sitting over him on the arm of his writing-chair, sketched a map annotated with facts and figures on a sheet of notepaper. When he had done, she returned to the sofa and read the notes. “Now I understand everything. It’s tremendously exciting, isn’t it?” “If it comes off.” She folded up the paper and put it in her bosom. “Of course it’ll come off.” “I say, sweetheart,” he cried, watching the disappearing paper. “For Heaven’s sake don’t go leaving that about! Better stick it in the fire.” “I’ll do it as soon as I get home.” She took his hand in delightful intimacy and glanced at his wrist watch. Then she started up. They must get back at once, lest the others should subject their absence to undesirable conjecture. “Oh, the elderly birds”—he laughed gracelessly—“they love to have a little billing and cooing now and then. They’ll be grateful to us.” But she would not be detained. They went up to the drawing-room. “He has got a perfect Hun museum downstairs,” she said. “Each piece with a breathless history.” “What interested you most?” asked Marcelle. “Me in a gas mask,” said Godfrey, lying readily, for never a glance had Lady Edna given to the trophies and spoils which she had set forth to see. Later, after putting her into her taxi, he said through the window: “You’ll destroy that scrap of paper, won’t you?” “If you doubt me, I’ll give it you back now,” she replied rather sharply, thrusting her hand beneath her cloak.