“The truth is,” he replied, “that till I had got to know you pretty well, I was afraid you might be rash—or at least careless, if you knew that woman was one of us.”
“So you treated me like an infant, Mr. Tiel?”
“The life I have lived,” said Tiel quietly, “has not been conducive to creating a feeling of confidence in my fellowmen’s discretion—until I know them. I know you now, and I feel sorry I took this precaution. Please accept my apologies.”
“I accept your apology,” I said stiffly; “but in future, Mr. Tiel, things will be pleasanter if you trust me.”
He bowed slightly and said simply—
“I shall.”
And then in a different voice he said—
“We have a visitor coming this afternoon to stay with us.”
“To stay here!” I exclaimed.
“Another of us,” he explained.
“Another—in these islands? Who is he?”
As I spoke we heard a bell ring.
“Ah, here she is,” said Tiel, going to the door. “Come down and be introduced whenever you like.”
For a moment I stood stock still, lost in doubt and wonder.
“She!” I repeated to myself.
VI
The Visitor
My feelings as I approached the parlour were anything but happy. Some voice seemed to warn me that I was in the presence of something sinister, that some unknown peril stalked at my elbow. This third party—this “she”—filled me with forebodings. If ever anybody had a presentiment, I had one, and all I can say now is that within thirty seconds of opening the parlour door, I had ceased to believe in presentiments, entirely and finally. The vision I beheld nearly took my breath away.
“Let me introduce you to my sister, Miss Burnett,” said Tiel. “She is so devoted to her brother that she has insisted on coming to look after him for the few days he is forced to spend in this lonely manse.”
He said this with a smile, and of course never intended me to believe a word of his statement, yet as he gave her no other name, and as that was the only account of her circulated in the neighbourhood, I shall simply refer to her in the meantime as Miss Burnett. It is the only name that I have to call her by to her face.
As to her appearance, I can only say that she is the most beautiful woman I have ever met in my life. The delicacy and distinction of her features, her dark eyebrows, her entrancing eye, and her thoughtful mouth, so firm and yet so sweet, her delicious figure and graceful carriage—heavens, I have never seen any girl to approach her! What is more, she has a face which I trust. I have had some experience of women, and I could feel at the first exchange of glances and of words that here was one of those rare women on whom a man could implicitly rely.
“Have you just landed upon these islands?” I inquired.
“Not today,” she said; and indeed, when I came to think of it, she would not have had time to reach the house in that case.
“Did you have much difficulty?” I asked.
“The minister’s sister is always admitted,” said Tiel with his dry smile.
I asked presently if she had travelled far. She shrugged her shoulders, gave a delightful little laugh, and said—
“We get so used to travelling that I have forgotten what ‘far’ is!”
Meanwhile tea was brought in, and Miss Burnett sat down and poured it out with the graceful nonchalant air of a charming hostess in her own drawing-room, while Tiel talked of the weather and referred carelessly to the lastest news just like any gentleman who might have called casually upon her. I, on my part, tried as best I could to catch the same air, and we all talked away very pleasantly indeed. We spoke English, of course, all the time, and indeed, anyone overhearing us and not seeing my uniform would never have dreamt for a moment that we were anything but three devoted subjects of King George.
On the other hand, we were surely proceeding on the assumption that nobody was behind a curtain or listening at the keyhole, and that being so, I could not help feeling that the elaborate pretence of being a mere party of ordinary acquaintances was a little unnecessary. At last I could not help saying something of what was in my mind.
“Is the war over?” I asked suddenly.
Both the others seemed surprised.
“I wish it were, Mr. Belke!” said Miss Burnett with a sudden and moving change to seriousness.
“Then if it is not, why are we pretending so religiously that we have no business here but to drink tea, Miss Burnett?”
“I am not pretending; I am drinking it,” she smiled.
“Yes, yes,” I said, “but you know what I mean. It seems to me so un-German!”
They both looked at me rather hard.
“I’m afraid,” said Miss Burnett, “that we of the secret service grow terribly cosmopolitan. Our habits are those of no country—or rather of all countries.”
“I had almost forgotten,” said Tiel, “that I once thought and felt like Mr. Belke.” And then he added this singular opinion: “It is Germany’s greatest calamity—greater even than the coming in of Britain against her, or the Battle of the Marne—that those who guide her destinies have not forgotten it too.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded, a little indignantly I must own.
“At every tea-party for many years Germany has talked about what interested herself—and that was chiefly war. At no tea-party has she tried to learn the thoughts and interests of the other guests. In consequence she does not yet understand the forces against her, why they act as they do, and how strong they are. But her enemies understand too well.”
“You mean that she has been honest and they dishonest?”
“Yes,” said Miss Burnett promptly and with a little smile, “my brother means that in order really to deceive people one has to act as we are acting now.”
I laughed.
“But unfortunately now there is no one to deceive!”
She laughed
