“I don’t understand you.”
“It is on schedule, is it not, that Captain Vauquelin of the Aviation Corps is to attempt a nonstop flight from Paris to London this morning, with two passengers, in a new Parrott biplane?”
“That is so. … Well?”
“I must be one of those passengers; and I have a companion, a young lady, who will take the place of the other.”
“It isn’t possible, monsieur. Those arrangements are already fixed.”
“You will countermand them.”
“There is no time—”
“You can get into telephonic communication with Port Aviation in two minutes.”
“But the passengers have been promised—”
“You will disappoint them.”
“The start is to be made in the first flush of daylight. How could you reach Port Aviation in time?”
“In your motorcar, monsieur.”
“It cannot be done.”
“It must! If the start must be delayed till we arrive, you will give orders that it shall be so delayed.”
For a minute the Minister of War hesitated; then he shook his head definitely.
“The difficulties are insuperable—”
“There is no such thing, monsieur.”
“I am sorry: it can’t be done.”
“That is your answer?”
“It is regrettable, monsieur …”
“Very well!” Lanyard bent forward again, took a match from the stand on the bedside table, and struck it. Very calmly he advanced the flame toward the cigarette containing the roll of inflammable films.
“Monsieur!” Ducroy cried in horror. “What are you doing?”
Lanyard favoured him with a look of surprise.
“I am about to destroy these films and prints.”
“You must never do that!”
“Why not? They are mine, to do with as I like. If I cannot dispose of them at my price, I shall destroy them!”
“But—my God!—what you demand is impossible! Stay, monsieur! Think what your action means to France!”
“I have already thought of that. Now I must think of myself.”
“But—one moment!”
Ducroy sat up in bed and dangled hairy fat legs over the side.
“But one moment only, monsieur. Don’t make me waste your matches!”
“Monsieur, it shall be as you desire, if it lies in my power to accomplish it.”
With this the Minister of War stood up and made for the telephone, in his agitation forgetful of dressing-gown and slippers.
“You must accomplish it, Monsieur Ducroy,” Lanyard advised him gravely, puffing out the flame; “for if you fail, you make yourself the instrument of my death. Here are the plans.”
“You trust them to me?” Ducroy asked in astonishment.
“But naturally: that makes it an affair of your honour,” Lanyard explained suavely.
With a gesture of graceful capitulation the Frenchman accepted the little roll of film.
“Permit me,” he said, “to acknowledge the honour of monsieur’s confidence!”
Lanyard bowed low: “One knows with whom one deals, monsieur! … And now, if you will be good enough to excuse me. …”
He turned to the door.
“But—eh—where are you going?” Ducroy demanded.
“Mademoiselle,” Lanyard said, pausing on the threshold—“that is, the young lady who is to accompany me—is waiting anxiously in the garden, out yonder. I go to find and reassure her and—with your permission—to bring her in to the library, where we will await monsieur when he has finished telephoning and—ah—repaired the deficiencies in his attire; which one trusts he will forgive one’s mentioning!”
He bowed again, impudently, gaily, and—when the Minister of War looked up again sheepishly from contemplation of his naked shanks—had vanished.
In high feather Lanyard made his way to a door at the rear of the house which gave upon the garden—in his new social status of Governmental protégé disdaining any such a commonplace avenue as that conservatory window whose fastenings he had forced on entering. And boldly unbolting the door, he ran out into the night, to rejoin his beloved, like a man waking to new life.
But she was no more there: the bench was vacant, the garden deserted, the gateway yawning on the street.
With a low, stifled cry, Lanyard turned from the bench and stumbled out to the junction of the cross-street. But nowhere in their several perspectives could he see anything that moved.
After some time he returned to the garden and quartered it with the thoroughness of a pointer beating a covert. But he did this hopelessly, bitterly aware that the outcome would be precisely what it eventually was, that is to say, nothing. …
He was kneeling beside the bench—scrutinizing the turf with microscopic attention by aid of his flash-lamp, seeking some sign of struggle to prove she had not left him willingly, and finding none—when a voice brought him momentarily out of his distraction.
He looked up wildly, to discover Ducroy standing over him, his stout person chastely swathed in a quilted dressing-gown and trousers, his expression one of stupefaction.
“Well, monsieur—well?” the Minister of War demanded irritably. “What—I repeat—what are you doing there?”
Lanyard essayed response, choked up, and gulped. He rose and stood swaying, showing a stricken face.
“Eh?” Ducroy insisted with an accent of exasperation. “Why do you stand glaring at me like that—eh? Come, monsieur: what ails you? I have arranged everything, I say. Where is mademoiselle?”
Lanyard made a broken gesture.
“Gone!” he muttered forlornly.
Instantly the countenance of the stout Frenchman was lightened with a gleam of eager interest—inveterate romantic that he was!—and he stepped nearer, peering closely into the face of the adventurer.
“Gone?” he echoed. “Mademoiselle? Your sweetheart, eh?”
Lanyard assented with a disconsolate nod and sigh. Impatiently Ducroy caught him by the sleeve.
“Come!” he insisted, tugging—“but come at once into the house. Now, monsieur—now at length you enlist all one’s sympathies! Come, I say! Is it your desire that I catch my death of cold?”
Indifferently Lanyard suffered himself to be led away. He was, indeed, barely conscious of what was happening. All his being was possessed by the thought that she had forsaken him. And he
