"We—I didn't," Anne smiled thinly. "Thank you."

They moved to the veranda, where Anne and Sara stood with arms intertwined.

"I am sorry, so sorry," cried Koltsoff, as he climbed into the car. "As I say, I shall possibly not return all night. At all events, au revoir." He turned to Anne and half raised his arm. "The trust," he said. She nodded and smiled.

"Have no fear, Prince Koltsoff," she said.

"Good!" He glared toward Armitage. "To town—and fast," he said.

As Armitage nodded, Anne, whose mood was past praying for, called mischievously:

"McCall, always touch your hat when you receive an order. And come right back, please; I shall want to go to town."

This time Armitage made a faultless salute.

When they had gone, Anne walked to a settee, drawing Mrs. Van Valkenberg by the arm, and flung herself down, laughing hysterically.

"Why, what is the matter, Anne?" Sara gazed at her in amazement. "Has anything—" she paused significantly—"happened?"

Anne drew her handkerchief across her eyes.

"No," she said, "not yet. But oh, Sara, if you had n't—" She stopped and gazed at her friend wide-eyed. "Sara," she said, "is it possible I love Prince Koltsoff?"

"No, it is not," replied Sara, decidedly. "Anne, don't be a goose. What is it, tell me?"

"I cannot; but yes, I think it is—it must be. Oh, I wonder!"

"Anne!"

"Sara, for goodness' sake, let me alone a moment. Come," she added, throwing her arm about the young matron's waist, "let's talk about other things now. Come with me while I telephone and call off that stupid theatre party. Then we 'll go to town, exchange the tickets, and then—Sara, let's have a regular bat—alone. You know—one of our old ones. I dare you."

"Done," said Mrs. Van Valkenberg, thankful to change the girl's mood.

While Anne was telephoning and offering various explanations to various persons, Sara sat thinking. It had not taken her ten minutes to decide that she detested Koltsoff and that Anne was under a spell not easily to be broken. If Armitage had tried to break it, if he were there for that purpose, he had failed a long way of success. He had chosen, in any event, a poor method of campaigning. If he did not know what was good for him, so much the worse. She did and accordingly when Anne had finished with the last of her list of prospective guests, she said:

"Anne, I have fallen quite in love with your new chauffeur."

"I don't blame you one bit," said Anne carelessly. "He's a stunner. But I don't believe he 's a chauffeur by profession."

"I happen to know he is n't."

"You—know—he is n't! How do you know? Tell me what he is then. I don't believe I 'll ever have any more curiosity about anything; I 've used it all on him."

"He 's a naval officer and a very promising one, I believe. He is John Armitage and his father is United States Senator Armitage from Kentucky—they 're really a very fine family—one of the best in the State."

"How did—? oh, of course, you were a Kentuckian. You don't mean to say you know him!"

"I know all his family very well. Why, I 've known Jack Armitage all my life," she raised her eyebrows. "But, Anne, promise you won't let on."

The full significance of the information imparted by her friend gradually rose to supremacy in Anne's mind. Her eyes turned slowly to Sara's face.

"Well, of all idiots I am the worst! Why, I even placed him at Annapolis and then let him turn me off! And mother, too! That's a good one on her. Well! What's his play? I confess I am stumped."

"His play?" Sara regarded her with a significant smile. "I wonder!"

Anne gazed at her a moment and then buried her face in her hands with a mock groan.

"Saints and ministers of grace, defend us!" she exclaimed.

Then girl-like, they clung to each other and laughed and laughed.

"Aren't you flattered?" asked Sara at length.

"Flattered? Oh, you mean about—" she grimaced. "Sara! It's perfectly ridiculous! And it is n't true. The very idea! The audacity! Don't tell me, Sara; there 's something else." But Sara caught the tentative note.

"Oh, naturally," she interposed, "you are far from being sufficiently attractive to draw an ardent young man into a romantic situation, especially—as you told me—after you had written him a note virtually inviting him to try his luck."

"Sara, you are beastly!"

"Forgive me, dear, but why not face facts?"

"Well!" Anne smiled resignedly. "Mother must n't know."

"Not until the play is over," said Sara.

Anne gazed moodily at her friend.

"It soon will be, I fear," she said.

As for the unsuspecting Armitage, he burned the road, smiling to think that underground wires were working for him, as well as the Prince. He had no fear that if Koltsoff had the control with him—which Armitage did not for a moment believe—the vigilance of the express companies and of the postal authorities would be found wanting. Koltsoff spent half an hour in the telegraph office and then alighting from the car in Touro Park, bade Armitage return to The Crags.

"Shall I call anywhere for you?" asked Armitage pleasantly.

"No," replied Koltsoff, who stood on the sidewalk, watching until the car disappeared.



CHAPTER XV

ANNE AND SARA SEEK ADVENTURE

"Anne," said Mrs. Wellington, as she came in from her drive a few minutes later, "your chauffeur drives too fast. The car passed me, cutting through Brenton Road a while ago, at a perfectly insane pace. Some one—how do you do, Sara, I 'm delighted to have you with us—was in the tonneau, whom I took to be Koltsoff, although there was such a blur I was n't certain. Was it he?"

"Yes, mother," Anne glanced at Sara. "Isn't it maddening! Some urgent summons, he said, made it necessary for him to go; and he may be away all night. Of course that punctured the party at Freebody."

"It is maddening," Sara hastened to observe.

Mrs. Wellington compressed her lips.

"I had told him your father would arrive this evening. But of course he must have failed to remember that. Fortunately, he will not come on from New York until to-morrow—I 've had a wire. Have you any idea the Prince will be with us to-morrow? Sir Arthur Baddeley will be down from Bar Harbor for the week; Bob Marie is coming with your father, and two or three of the Tuxedo crowd, Sallie and Blanche Turnure and Willie Whipple will be here by Wednesday for the ball, certainly."

"I don't know, really," said Anne, "but I imagine so, of course."

Sara gazed at Mrs. Wellington curiously. It was true the woman was outwardly unperturbed, characteristically so, but Sara had never before been able to read in that mask-like face so many indications of inward irritation. Anne's sly glance told her that she, too, had been able to enjoy a rare opportunity of penetrating beneath the surface.

Mrs. Wellington toyed with her lorgnette for a moment.

"Anne, if Koltsoff returns and I don't see him, let me know the very first minute, will you, please?" She glanced at the girl with an expression best described as detached. "If it interests you any, my daughter, you succeeded in making a sensation this afternoon—you and Koltsoff. I gather that everything was done but placarding him; and I have heard of at least eight persons you cut in the Casino."

"Oh—mother, by the way, if I am not too inquisitive," said Anne, hastening to change the trend of thought, "I read, or heard, somewhere that father was interested in getting hold of a Russian issue of railroad bonds, or something of the sort. Is Prince Koltsoff concerned?"

"Your father has no business dealings with him. Dismiss that thought. Railroad bonds—I believe he was looking into them. I don't know the details, or rather do not recall them. I do remember, though, his saying that he had relinquished the opportunity to the French with great pleasure."

"Oh," said Anne, "I imagined his visit here was a mingling of business with pleasure."

"I don't know what it is a mingling of, I 'm quite sure," said Mrs. Wellington. She turned to go. "I 'm dining out to-night, at the Cunningham-Jones'. I shouldn't have accepted, but you were to be at Berger's with your theatre party. You won't mind, Sara?"

"Not at all, Mrs. Wellington, don't bother about me. I hope I 'm not company."

Mrs. Wellington smiled. She was very partial to the young widow.

"The boys are at Ochre Point for the night. You might call up people if you want company for dinner, Anne."

"To think," cried Anne, as her mother left the room, "how events have shaped themselves for us! Of course we shan't dine at home; I 'll have Emilia tell Mrs. Stetson after we have gone. Now, Sara, what can we do exciting?" Her eyes flashed with animation as she gazed at her friend. "Shall it be shop girl disguises with dinner on Thames Street, or what?"

"I know," cried Sara. "We 'll put on shirt-waist suits and plain hats, muss our hair a bit, and take a trip on a sight-seeing barge."

"Lovely. Mc—Mr. Armitage can take us to the starting place at Easton's Beach and then pick us up there when we get back. After that—"

"Hoop-la," laughed Sara, and the two young women—nothing but school girls now—fell into each other's arms, hugging joyously.

When Armitage appeared again at the porte cochere a few minutes before five o'clock, two very changed, but merry young women awaited him. Anne flashed her eyes at Armitage.

"To Easton's Beach, McCall," she said sweetly.

Easton's Beach was at the height of the day's exodus of excursionists to Providence, Fall River, Taunton and elsewhere, as Armitage drew alongside the sun-baked board walk in front of the main bathing pavilion. Trolley cars, which had rolled empty down the long hill by the ocean side, were now ascending laden to the guards, and the ocean, relieved of its bathers, whose suits of multifarious cuts and colors had grievously marred the blue waters, had recovered its beautiful serenity.

"We are going to take a barge ride, McCall," said Anne, as they alighted from the car. "You might follow us at a respectful distance, though, so you can pick us up when we decide to get out."

Armitage touched his cap and sat watching amusedly, while Anne and Sara with exaggerated swinging strides walked toward a barge comfortably filled with a heterogeneous assemblage of sightseers. They paused uncertainly at the side of the clumsy vehicle and were thus espied by the driver, who was on the point of starting his horses.

"Whoa!" he cried, pulling at the reins. "Here you are, ladies. Two seats in the front for the sunset drive. Last chance of the day. All the way round for fifty cents. All points pointed out, with inside information."

Sara glanced doubtfully at Anne, but the girl already had her foot on the step.

"We ain't going all the way," she said. "Can we get out where we please?"

"Sure, the sooner the better," cried the driver cheerfully.

"All right," said Anne, clambering in; "come on, Jane."

Sara followed obediently, kneeing her way along the seat to Anne's side.

"The Cliff Walk," said the driver, swinging his whip to the left as they drove up the hill.

"Is that where society people walk?" asked Anne.

"Naw, only the common people," replied the oracle. "Any society person found there would be ostracized."

"They would!" exclaimed an elderly Irishman, smoking a pipe at Anne's side. "Is th' ground too poor fur their phroud feet?"

"Only think," said a stout woman behind them, leaning forward, "the cottage owners have been tryin' to close up the walk to the public. My brother 's a grocer clerk here and he says the city would be better off without the cottagers. They 're awful! Don't pay their bills and such carryin's on—you 've no idea."

"Use n't you to live here?" asked Sara. "I thought I seen you in the city."

"Not me. I live over to Jamestown," said the stout woman.

In the meantime, Anne had noted to her disgust that two men in white duck trousers and straw yachting caps were trying to catch their attention. It was not to be wondered at, for despite the broad-brimmed hats tilted well over their foreheads and hair in studied disarray, by way of disguise, no more dashing pair had ever patronized Newport's sightseeing system. Of course this aspect of their adventure had not occurred to Anne and she was about to pull Sara's skirt and suggest that they abandon the trip forthwith, when that young woman glancing about for fresh material, suddenly turned pale.

"Anne!" she whispered. "For heaven's sake! There 's my cook at the other end of that back seat—the fat, red-headed man. What shall I do?"

Anne, without replying, touched the driver and handed him a two-dollar bill.

"Keep that," she said, "and please let us out at once."

And so, just a bit panic-stricken, but with ardor undimmed, the two awaited the motor car.

"We might have known!" observed Sara. "Do you suppose he recognized me?"

Anne was laughing.

"How in the world could he help it?"

"Of course," said Sara, her face lighting with the humor of the incident. "I shan't care at all, provided he does n't give me notice."

They were quite ready for Armitage when he came up in the car.

"Where to now, Sara?" Anne stamped her foot. "Isn't that the way! When you have the opportunity and the desire for a good time you can't imagine what to do."

"Well, let us get into the car, anyway," said Sara, "those detestable creatures who were in the barge have actually followed us."

So they entered the motor. Armitage turned inquiringly, but Anne shook her head.

"One moment, if you please."

"I wanted to ask you, Miss Wellington, if you thought I could get away to-night about seven o'clock?" He glared defiantly at Sara, who was ostentatiously concealing her face in her hand. "I have rather an important engagement."

"Why—" Anne glanced at Sara, who seeing an opening for a new avenue of fun, was now laughing unreservedly.

"You really can't think of it, you know, dear," she said. "Why, at seven o'clock he will just begin to be useful."

Anne saw the chauffeur's shoulders shrug angrily, and it amused her.

"Cut through here and drive toward the Training Station," she commanded, "and we 'll think about seven o'clock, McCall."

Sara, who had been vigorously nodding and screwing up her eyes at Armitage's back, laughed musically.

"Anne," she said, "your chauffeur is badly trained as to manners. Really, he suggests a man graduated from the Fifth Avenue buses, don't you know."

"You must make allowances, Sara; he's only an improvised chauffeur."

"I know; but he 's hardly of the chauffeur type. Now as a detective—can't you imagine him in a pair of false whiskers?"

"I 've always suspected him of a wig," Anne giggled, "or reinforced putees."

With a quick jerking of levers, Armitage stopped the car. He turned around, looked at Sara quietly for a moment and then at Anne. Something in her face told him what he wanted to know.

"Sara," he said, "for a first-class, large gauge sieve, I commend you to any one."



CHAPTER XVI

THE ADVENTURE MATERIALIZES

Sara bowed with mock humility and then raising her head, looked Anne straight in the eyes.

"Miss Wellington, I present Mr. Armitage, an officer—a lieutenant, I think—of the United States Navy."

Anne sat silent for a second and then stretched her hand out over the seat, laughing.

"What a situation!" she exclaimed. "I am pleased to know that my 'Dying Gladiator'—" she paused, and looked inquiringly at Armitage, who had taken and released her hand in silence.

"I don't wish to be impertinent," she continued at length, flushing vividly, "but I feel it is my right to know why you posed as a physical instructor and entered service in our house. Surely I—you—you must have had some good reason."

"Anne," Sara hastened to relieve Armitage of apparent confusion, or irritation, she could not tell which, "naturally his reasons for the deceit were excellent." She looked at her friend with a significant raising of the brows. "I—those reasons still exist, do they not, Jack?" She scowled admonishingly at him.

Armitage, who plainly diagnosed Sara's drift, was smiling broadly, as Anne looked at him with a curious, wondering expression.

"They still exist—decidedly, Sara," he said. He paused for a second, and then continued in the lamest sort of way, "Will you let me be a driver just a little while longer, Miss Wellington? It is really important. When I explain everything you 'll understand. Of course, I 've been governed by the best motives."

Anne was somewhat more dignified.

"Certainly, I have not the slightest objection to having a naval officer for a driver—if you have none. I must say, though, I shall be eager to learn the reasons for your rather—rather unconventional behavior."

"You shall be the first one to know," replied Jack, with quite a different meaning in mind than that which Sara Van Valkenberg read, whose eyes, by the way, were dancing with excitement.

There was an awkward silence for a moment and Jack was turning to the wheel when Anne leaned forward.

"You must tell me about the Navy, sometime," she said. "I have begun to feel I am rather a poor American. Where are you attached?"

"I 'm with the torpedo flotilla at present," said Armitage. "By the way, Miss Wellington, that reminds me of my request for liberty to-night. The boats are going out and—and—it's rather important I go with them. I shall be back before midnight."

"Oh!" Sara's exclamation was so sharp and eager that both Jack and Anne started.

"I have it!" She leaned forward eagerly as both turned to her. "I know. We 'll make him take us out with the boats to-night. Can you imagine anything more thrilling? I have never been on a naval vessel in my life—and they 'll shoot torpedoes. Night attack, Port Arthur, and all that sort of thing, don't you know."

Anne was quite carried away.

"Good! Oh, that would be—" She stopped short as a sudden thought came to her. "Do you suppose—" she said slowly, "that you could, Mr. Armitage? I should love the experience. But perhaps—"

"Nonsense," interrupted Sara. "Of course he can take us. Did n't we see that crowd of women on one of the torpedo boats at the King's Cup race?"

"That boat was not in commission," said Jack. "You might be court-martialled if the commanding officer of the flotilla saw you." He spoke lightly, but running clearly through his mind was the uncompromising phraseology of Article 250 of the Navy Regulations: "Officers commanding fleets, divisions, or ships shall not permit women to reside on board of, or take passage in, any ship of the Navy in commission for sea service." Violation of this meant court-martial and perhaps dismissal from the service. And yet Sara's proposition thrilled him potently. He could not deny his eagerness to do as the young women wished. To have Anne at his side for long hours on a footing of equality! As he looked at her now with her lips parted, her eyes blazing with interest, her cheeks flushed, the penalty of disobeying that odious Article 250 seemed, at worst, slight. Besides, the D'Estang was assigned to him for special service to do with her as he saw fit. There might be a loophole there.

Anne, who had been pondering his words, looked up.

"If you are thinking only of us, I should n't mind one bit. I should love dearly to go. I have often seen the torpedo boats from my windows and wished to be on one of them. They look so black and venomous!"

"All right. I'll take you." Armitage looked at them with serious face. "There may be some danger. It is n't yachting, you know."

"Of course it isn't," said Sara.

"Certainly not," echoed Anne. "And besides, Mr. Armitage, I 've never faced real danger in my life—except once when my polo pony ran away. Oh, I want to go!"

"I should like to change my clothes." Armitage glanced humorously at his livery.

"Of course," said Anne. "I tell you; you leave us at Berger's, drive home and change your clothes, then you can pick us up there and we 'll leave the car at O'Neill's until we return. How is that? We will have a lobster ordered for you."

"Don't bother about that, please. I shall have to run over to the island when I come back from The Crags, to prepare the way. Take a taxicab and be at the Navy Landing—no, that would n't be wise; some one might see you. Go to the New York Yacht Club station and I, or Johnson, my second, will be there in the D'Estang's launch. We are the outer boat in the slips and you can come aboard over the stern without any one seeing you. Don't be a minute later than seven-thirty o'clock—that is," he added, "if you are serious about making the trip."

"Serious!" exclaimed Sara.

"Oh, we are serious," said Anne, "and Mr. Armitage—you 're awfully good!"

A tall, grave, young ensign met the two excited girls at the hour designated and shot them across the bay to the torpedo boat slips in silence.

"He 's a nice-looking boy," whispered Sara. "But I wonder,—he does n't seem altogether to approve."

Anne, who had been studying the officer, smiled easily.

"That isn't it; he's embarrassed. For heaven's sake, Sara, don't try to make me feel de trop at this stage."

The young man was embarrassed; Anne had diagnosed correctly. And it was with great relief that he turned them over to Armitage, who led them to a hatch and thence down a straight iron ladder to the wardroom. Anne watched the precise steward adjusting a centrepiece of flowers upon the mess table and then glanced around the apartment, which was lined with rifles, cutlasses, and revolvers in holsters.

"How interesting, Mr. Armitage," she said. "Do you recall the last time we were in a cabin together?" smiling. "How absurd it was!"

"Wasn't it," laughed Armitage. He left the wardroom and returned in a few minutes with two officers' long, blue overcoats and caps.

"These are your disguises. I 'll send an orderly down to take you up to the bridge when we get well under way—"

"Do we really have to wear these?" Sara viewed the overcoats with mock concern.

"Must," laughed Armitage. "It is going to be cold and it looks like rain. I 'd tuck my hair up under the caps as much as possible if I were you. Damp salt air is bad for hair."

"You mean you wish us to look like men," asserted Sara.

"I merely want you to be appropriate to the picture."

Sara looked at him mischievously.

"Why not the entire uniform, then?"

"Sara!" cried Anne, as Jack ducked out of the door.

"Anne," Sara placed her hand on Anne's arm, "are you interested in Jack Armitage?"

The girl looked at the dark burning cheeks of the handsome full-blooming young woman in front of her.

"Don't be silly, Sara."

"I 'm not silly," said Mrs. Van Valkenberg, half humorously. "I really want to know."

"Why?"

"Why, because if you 're not, I want you to keep in the background. For I think I 'd—rather like to—enlist in the Navy."

Anne could not tell why, but Sara had succeeded in irritating her.



CHAPTER XVII

THE NIGHT ATTACK

As a smart young seaman escorted the two young women to the bridge and placed them beside the six-pounder gun, the two destroyers, Jefferson and D'Estang and the torpedo boats Barclay, Rogers, Bagley, Philip, and Dyer were sweeping between Fort Adams and Rose Island in echelon formation. Long columns of gray-black smoke pouring from the funnels, mingled with the heavy haze of the August evening. There was a bobble of a sea on and as the Jefferson signalled for the vessels to come up into line, the scene presented by the grim, but lithe torpedo boats, each hurrying across the waves to its appointed position, rolling in the sea hollows and pitching clouds of spray over grimy bows, appealed suggestively to Miss Wellington, who stood with her hand tightly clenched in Sara's. Huge blue-black clouds, with slivery shafts showing through the rents the wind had made, banked the western horizon, and out to seaward the yellow Brenton Reef light vessel rolled desolate on the surge.

"Is n't it beautiful," murmured Anne, half to herself. "It is so different from being on the Mayfair, is n't it?"



Sara nodded.

"So much more fun," she replied. "Much more thrilling."

As a matter of fact, the atmosphere of expectancy filled the vessel. Armitage, concerned with the navigation of the ship, his cap reversed to keep the wind from getting under the peak and lifting it into the sea, had neglected them utterly, and the junior had not withdrawn his head from the chart booth for half an hour.

Time and again Jack's face swept past, unseeing them, toward the quartermaster with hands on the wheel, at the rear of the bridge, crying crisply:

"Helm to port."

And the quartermaster replied as he twisted the wheel:

"Helm to port, sir."

Then—

"Ease your helm!"

"Ease your helm, sir."

The dark had fallen now. Ahead the Point Judith acetylene buoy sent its rays toward them. When they came abreast of it, it was pitch black and the white light on Watch Hill was made out to the southeastward. Suddenly from the Jefferson's deck a series of red and white lights began to wink and blink. Answering signals twinkled over a mile of water and the boats stopped their engines, rolling like logs on the waters.

Armitage walked over to Anne and Sara, who, in their coats and caps, looked not unlike officers themselves.

"How do you like it?"

"Oh, it is terribly interesting!" said Anne. "What are you going to do now?"

"Wait for the battleships, I imagine," said Armitage. "We don't really torpedo them," he added. "The object is to get as close as possible without being observed. They try to locate us with searchlights. As soon as they see us they put the light on us and fire a red star. After that star is fired the discovered boat must steam full speed for the quarry for one minute and then fire a green star and turn on her lights. The distance from the battleship to the boat is measured and if we are within torpedo range, two thousand yards, the torpedo boat wins. If the distance is greater, we are technically out of action—the battleship wins."

"How interesting!" Anne gazed at Armitage admiringly. "And that is what you would do in real warfare then—rush into the very face of the battleship's firing in the effort to blow her up?"

"About that," smiled Armitage.

"But what a risk! You must steam through a perfect hail of bullets, with chances of striking with your torpedo largely against you. And even if you do strike you are liable to pay the price with your lives. Am I not right?"

"These pirates of the flotilla," laughed Jack, "do not think of the price. They 're in the Navy to think of other things."

"And is that the spirit of the American Navy?"

"Of course," Armitage looked at her curiously. "Why not?"

Anne laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, I don't know. I know something of the British and French Navies, but patriotism—the sort of spirit you speak of—has always appeared to me such an abstract thing as regards America. It's because, I suppose, I have never known anything about it, because I have been more or less of an expatriate all my life."

Jack had been watching a display of Ardois lights from the Jefferson's mast. He turned away, but spoke over his shoulder.

"Don't be that, Miss Wellington, for you have proved to me that a girl or a child, reared as you have been, can be American in every instinct and action. I had never believed that."

He hurried away to the bridge rail and Anne's arm turned red under the impress of Sara's fingers.

In compliance with the Jefferson's signals, the engines of the flotilla began to throb and the boats turned to the eastward.

A cry came from the D'Estang's lookout. Anne and Sara leaned forward and saw that a blundering sailing vessel—her dark sails a blotch against the sky, her hull invisible—was careening just ahead. She had no lights, and curses on the heads of coastwise skippers who take risks and place other vessels in jeopardy merely to save oil, swept through the flotilla like ether waves.

Armitage let a good Anglo-Saxon objurgation slip from his tongue as he turned toward the yeoman.

"Half speed!"

"Half speed, sir," answered the yeoman as he tugged at the engine room telegraph.

All eyes were now on the schooner. How was she heading? A group of seamen stood beside Armitage and Johnson on the bridge, trying to ascertain that important point. A flash of lightning gave a momentary glance of greasy sails bulged to port.

"She 's on the starboard tack, crossing the flotilla!"

"All right." There was relief in Jack's voice as he called for full speed ahead.

"It's no fun to ram a merchantman, with all the law you get into," said the signal quartermaster, standing near the young women. "And if they hit you, good-bye."

But the schooner had a knowing captain. He had no intention of trying to cross all those sharp bows. He quickly tacked between the D'Estang and Barclay and passed the rest of the boats astern.

Slowly the boats were loafing along now.

At ten-thirty the Jefferson winked her signals at the rest of the flotilla.

"Put out all lights."

As the young women glanced over the sea the truck lights died responsively. Then the green and red starboard and port lamps and lights in wardroom and galley went out and men hurried along the deck placing tarpaulins over the engine room gratings. Only the binnacle lights remained and these were muffled with just a crack for the helmsman to peer through.

A great blackness settled over the waters. To Anne, always an impressionable girl, it was as though all life had suddenly been obliterated from the face of them. Her hand tightened its grasp on Sara's fingers, for as the vessel plunged along there was a palpable impression that the flotilla, now hurrying forward in viewless haste, was pitched for the supreme test. Off to the seaward signal lights from the parent ship Racine, having on board the officer in charge of the Navy's mobile defences—which is to say, torpedo boats—had flared and died. The battleships were approaching.

Anne, quivering with excitement, peered out through the night; nothing but darkness. Below, lined along the rails, she caught dull outlines of the white caps of the seamen, all as eager to defeat the battleships as their officers. She saw the phosphorescent gleam from a shattered wave. But she heard nothing, not even the swish of water.

Johnson approached diffidently, and leaned over the rail at their side, straining his eyes into the night.

"The chances of making a successful attack," he said, "are best if we approach from almost ahead, a little on the bow. Then we are lessening the distance between us at the sum of the speeds of the flotilla and the battleships. We 'll hit up about twenty-five knots when we see them. Of—"

A low incisive voice sounded forward, a blotch of a hand and arm pointing. There was a movement on the bridge as a dark object came close. It was the Jefferson. A dull figure leaned over her bridge with a megaphone.

"We 've blown out some boiler tubes and scalded a couple of men, D'Estang. Go in ahead."

"All right," Jack's voice was muffled.

Again came the voice of the lookout and the arm pointed ahead.

"Oh!" Anne pinched Sara's arm. "I see them. See those great black shadows over there?" She stepped forward. "Shall I tell them?"

But Armitage had seen. He turned to the yeoman.

"Full speed, ahead!"

"Full speed, ahead, sir."

The slender hull throbbed with the giant pulsings of the two sets of engines. There was not another sound. It was as though the vessel were plunging through an endless void. In the darkness astern arose a spear-like puff of crimson flame. Again it appeared and again, quivering, sinister.

"Damn the Barclay; she's torching!" There came a shout from out of the dark and in an instant two great beams of lambent light cut wide swaths through the pall. They were too high; they missed the D'Estang altogether and rested on the Barclay's smoke, which rose and tumbled and billowed and writhed like a heavy shroud in the ghastly shafts.

"They 've missed us and are trying to get the Barclay. Come on!" Jack's voice was vibrant with the joy of the test. He was kneeling on the bridge, a megaphone in his hand. He turned it toward the women. "Crouch down beside that gun and stay down, please, until this is over."

As he spoke, the leading battleship, the dreadnaught Arizona, was getting her searchlight beams down, and all unseen, the D'Estang and she were approaching each other at a total speed of thirty-seven knots.

Nearer they came and the destroyer was almost to the great dark blur, with the shining arms radiating from her like living tails from a dead comet, when, with terrible suddenness and intensity almost burning, the Arizona flashed a sixty-inch searchlight directly down on the destroyer's bridge. Sara stifled a scream and Anne bowed her head to the deck to shut out the fearful blaze. Armitage, standing upright now and rubbing open his eyes, saw that the time had come to turn, and quickly. The D'Estang was approaching the battleship, pointing toward her port bow. The idea of the manoeuvre was to turn in a semicircle, passing the Arizona at a distance of about two hundred yards. He shouted the order.

"Hard—a—port."

There was an instant's silence and the face of the quartermaster was seen to turn pale in the glare of the relentless searchlight.

"Wheel rope carried away, sir."

Armitage fairly threw himself across the bridge, but Johnson was there first. Quiet, unemotional Johnson, his hat off now, his hair dishevelled, and his eyes blazing.

"The helm is jambed hard a-starboard!" he cried.

In an instant the situation crystallized itself into a flashing picture upon Anne's mind. She had held the wheel on her father's yacht; but it was not that which made her see. It was divination, which fear or danger sometimes brings to highly sensitized minds—just as it brought the same picture to Sara's mind. With helm thus jambed, it meant that the D'Estang would have to turn in the same direction in which the Arizona was ploughing along at a twelve-knot speed. In making this turn she could not possibly clear, but must strike the battleship. On the other hand she was too near to be stopped in time to avoid going across the bows of that great plunging mass of drab steel, and being cut in two.

Anne, crouching immovable, her eyes fixed on Armitage, saw his head half turn in her direction, then with the automatic movement of a machine, he reached for the port engine room telegraph and with a jerk threw the port engine full speed astern. The bridge quivered as though it were being torn from its place; throughout the hull sounded a great metallic clanking. There came a new motion. The destroyer was spinning like a top, the bow almost at a standstill, the stem swinging in a great arc.

It was like the working out of a problem in dynamics. Nearer they came. Anne could now make out the great shape of the battleship; the dull funnels belching black clouds of smoke, which, merging with the night, were immediately absorbed; the shadowy, basket-like masts, from which the search-light rays went forth; the long, vaguely protruding twelve-inch guns. A whistle, tremulous and piercing, shrilled along the battleship's deck; dull white figures were clambering into the port life boats. Still closer now! Anne could hear the heavy swish of waters under the Arizona's bows. Her nerves were tight strung, prepared for the crash of steel against steel and the shock of the submersion. There was no sound from the Arizona now. Her bridge had echoed with shouts of warning. The time for that had passed. Armitage had not uttered a sound. Straight he stood by the telegraph, tense and rigid, his hand clutching the lever.

Around came the stern with fearful momentum, so close—but clear of the giant hull—that the gunner's mate at the stern torpedo tube took his chew of tobacco and, as he afterwards put it, "torpedoed the battleship with his eyes shut." Now the stern was pointed directly toward the Arizona, hardly five yards away. Armitage, bending over the telegraph, jerked sharply upon the lever, throwing the port engine full speed ahead again. He stood up and glanced quickly astern. Like a live thing, the D'Estang jumped clear. Sara leaned heavily on Anne's shoulder with little tearless sobs. But Anne, crouching in the position she had maintained since the search-light had blinded the bridge, still watched Jack with eyes that seemed to transfix him.

A figure leaped to the end of the battleship's bridge.

"The Admiral's compliments, D'Estang!"

The engines were stopped now and Armitage and Johnson and a group of men were working at the helm. Sara raised her head.

"Anne," she said solemnly. "I never wanted to kiss a man until this minute." Mischievously she made a move as though to arise. The girl's hand clenched upon her arm.

"Don't be an idiot," she said. "Can't you see how busy they are? Besides, Sara, no man likes to be kissed by two girls—at the same time."

As Jack, once more a chauffeur, drove under the porte cochere at The Crags, shortly before one o'clock, Anne sat for a moment in her seat after her friend had alighted. Sara looked back with a little smile and then walked toward the door, which a footman had opened.

"Mr. Armitage," said Anne in a low voice, "I want to thank you for many things to-night—for one thing above all. I cannot tell you what it is, for I hardly know myself." She paused, and Jack, who was toying with the switch lever, looked at her curiously. "It's a new viewpoint, I fancy. Somehow—I have a feeling that there is more to this country, my country, than Fifth Avenue, Central Park, Tuxedo, Long Island, and Newport—something bigger and finer than railroads. I am glad to feel that, and I thank you."



CHAPTER XVIII

ANNE WELLINGTON HAS HER FIRST TEST

Sara was waiting for Anne in the hall. She had taken off her hat and stood idly swinging it. A single globe was lighted in the chandelier overhead and the extremities of the great apartment were lost in gloom.

"Well, dear," Sara yawned broadly, "I fancy we shall sleep to-night."

Anne had thrown her arm over Sara's shoulders and they were walking toward the stairs when Koltsoff appeared from the shadow, confronting them.

"Oh! Prince Koltsoff! How you frightened me," said Anne in a low voice, drawing back.

"A thousand pardons. It would have grieved me had I thought of doing that."

Sara observed him with irritation. There was, however, so much of the exotic about the man, as to render him attractive, even to her. Tall, well—if slimly—built; in manner graceful—"silken" was the designation that occurred to her—there could be no question as to the potency of his personality: a potency, by the way, from whose spell, she had learned in various ways throughout the evening, Anne was not entirely aloof. It was perfectly clear to Sara, that with Armitage, strong and clever in a wholesome masculine way, Anne was the light-hearted, mischievous, pure-minded girl—his ideal of American young womanhood. But now she caught the other note of her character—an untrue note, but none the less positive—and the other look in her eyes. Her voice was deeper, more womanly, more surcharged with underlying things, as she spoke to the Russian, and Sara could see she was breathing more rapidly.

"I have been waiting to see you, Miss Wellington," he was saying. "I have waited so long." There was a note of pathos in his voice.

"Is it important—now?" asked Anne, and her friend tugged at her sleeve. "I am very tired and sleepy."

"For a few moments, that is all," persisted the Prince gently. "Is it too much?"

Sara, inwardly raging, detected the subtle appeal which this man, so versed apparently in the emotions of womanhood, was making to the inherent maternal, protective, sympathetic instincts of the girl, who, now they were aroused, was smiling patiently.

"Very well, Prince Koltsoff. Don't bother to wait, Sara. Good-night."

"Such a day of weariness, Miss Wellington,", said the Prince, as he followed Anne to a bench running along the foot of the staircase. "One of my men,—calf-head,—was arrested in Boston."

"Arrested! Really! What had he been doing?"

"Nothing, I assure you, save trying to leave this bestial country. He had been of service to me in Newport and elsewhere. I was worried. I am worried. He was allowed to go. But they took valuable papers concerning Austria from him. How can I get them? Am I undone?" Koltsoff raised his eyes. "How can I say? Steinberg at Boston is in Maine. And so—" Koltsoff tossed his hand in the air—"I have spent," he at last continued, "more than twenty thousand roubles on the matter. I have spent five thousand roubles on the dumbhead, Yeasky, who has not the brains or courage of a mouse. I am discouraged." He caught her hand, pressed it to his forehead, and released it. "But I oppress you with my diplomatic cares," he murmured. "It has been the first time I ever burdened a woman with them. You—you are different, because you are of the few gifted to bear, to solve them."

Anne made no reply.

"You hold safely that which I placed in your keeping?" he asked after a pause.

His hand felt its way to hers, lying inert on the cushion, his fingers closing softly upon it. She did not withdraw it, but lowered her head.

"Was it in connection with that your man was arrested in Boston?"

Koltsoff laughed.

"They thought to connect him with it. But—" he pressed Anne's fingers, "the connecting link happened to be in your—jewelry safe."

Anne, thrilled at the part she was playing in the mysterious diplomatic episode, laughed softly. Somehow it all appeared bigger even than dodging under battleships' bows,—certainly more subtle. Koltsoff gazed at her admiringly.

"My dear Miss Wellington," he said, "do you realize more and more, that of which I spoke to-day—your fitness for the international sphere? Your beauty—your coolness—the temper of your spirit—your ability to sway strong men, as you have swayed me—do you appreciate all? Are you proud that you have swayed me?"

"Prince Koltsoff!" Anne's voice rang with doubt and anguish and yet—pride.

She was tired and spent with the day and as his arm stole, almost snake-like, about her waist, she raised a nerveless hand, plucked feebly to remove the fingers pressing into her side, and then let her hand fall to the cushion.

His head was bending over her, his face was very close. Some vivid instinct told her that he must not kiss her. She tried to struggle but she could not. The next instant she was living that epoch which innocence may only know ere it perishes—a man's lips making free with eyes and mouth and cheeks. She lay now, half in his arms, looking at him with wide, startled eyes, her lips parched.

"Anne," he bent forward to kiss her again, but she turned her head away and then, again, her unchanging eyes sought his face. "What I have done—what I have meant, I shall make clear to your parents to-morrow. To you I can say nothing now. You—ah, of course know the European custom."

"Please let me go." There was a tired sob in Anne's voice.

"But I have not yet told you that which I wish to say." Anne tore from his arm and started up.

"You haven't! Oh, very well. I am listening."

"You were out with the torpedo boats tonight. You were upon the boat with Lieutenant Armitage."

"I—" Anne paused. Armitage, without attempting to obtain promises of secrecy as to the mission of the flotilla, had pointed out that all information of the sort was absolutely confidential and that above all the ability of a torpedo boat destroyer to get within two hundred yards of a battleship was not news that the Government would care to have disseminated, even though it were the exception rather than the rule. This thought shot through Anne's mind.

"You quite surprise me," she said finally.

"Oh, I really do not," smiled Koltsoff. "As I have informed you, we diplomats are omnipresent. Therefore I do not surprise you when I say that you and your friend were on the D'Estang; that the Jefferson had an accident and sent two scalded men to the hospital. All that—pouf!" Koltsoff snapped his fingers. "That is immaterial—who cares about such manoeuvres as the Navy of the United States indulge in! But," and Koltsoff bent toward her with unwinking eyes, "this is important: the D'Estang became separated from the rest of the fleet and there are reports that she discharged a new sort of torpedo at the battleship. That is interesting—important to me. I feared I could not ascertain until I learned that my skilled coadjutor, my fellow diplomat," he nodded at her, "was present on the D'Estang."

"Why do you ask me? Why don't you apply to Mr. Armitage?"

"Ah, he would tell me, of course!" laughed Koltsoff sarcastically. "In any event, I have yet to know him. He was at Washington when I arrived in Newport, and since his return has been at the Torpedo Station but one night. My men have not been able to find him."

Anne had forgotten her weariness now.

"There seems to be something, at least, in the American Navy that you find worthy of close interest," she said.

An expression of indifference settled upon the Prince's face.

"Ah, if you know of the Navy, you know the nations are always interested in the new devices and plans of other nations. I once paid fifteen thousand roubles for the plans of an English fort."

"And so diplomacy is stealing or buying information, then?"

"Diplomacy is anything, Anne."

"You interest me, Prince Koltsoff."

"But the D'Estang—I imagine she was not successful with her torpedoing." Inwardly he was cursing Yeasky, as he had been all the evening; Yeasky had never missed a trip of the D'Estang.

Anne, beginning to see, had worked into her cool, malicious mood.

"You must not be so imaginative," she gaped [Transcriber's note: gasped?]. "And now if you 'll excuse me—it's two o'clock."

"But Anne—Miss Wellington!" The Prince was at her side. "You do not really intend to deny me!" He shook his head, as though dazed. "It cannot be possible that our understanding is so incomplete. I had dared to hope, to believe that our interests were so swiftly merging. And what is it that I ask! Merely a slight question about the D'Estang. Anne—is it upon so little a thing that you fail me? Would that you might try me with a bigger, greater test. You should see!"

"Do you mean that, really?"

"As God is my judge!" cried the Prince fervently.

"Then," said Anne seriously, "say good-night to me. Pardon me, but I am tired."

"But the D'Estang," cried Koltsoff insistently. "My plans—my life—"

"What!" interrupted Anne, as a thought was born of his words. "I understood that this was merely a matter of routine naval intelligence."

Koltsoff mopped his forehead.

"That is true," he hastened to say, "but matters of routine are the greater part of the lives of such as we. Our success depends upon it, alone. Pardon me, but I must insist that you tell me what I have asked." He had almost backed her against the wainscoting.

"And I won't tell you, Prince Koltsoff."

"Why not, pray?"

"I will tell you why," her voice quivered with emotion. "This morning you convinced me pretty thoroughly that I had no right to call myself an American. I still feel that way, don't you know. But to-night I 've seen brave and devoted men risking their lives and perfecting themselves in their calling not only through professional interest but through love of their country and their flag, and dare-devil enthusiasm in serving under a flag that means so much to them. The father of the junior officer on the D'Estang is a farmer and the captain of the Barclay is the son of an insurance clerk. But they're all of one cut and out of one mould—American fighting men who would shoot or knock down any one who dared utter in their presence such words as I have listened to from you—more shame to me—without a single emotion, save amusement." She ran on breathlessly, "Whatever happened on the D'Estang to-night, important or unimportant, is the concern of the Navy of my country alone. Hereafter, in anything you say or do, Prince Koltsoff, remember I am learning to be an American—" she stopped and smiled at her own ardor, "so please don't say anything to discourage me."

Koltsoff, who had been listening in silence, without making a movement, suddenly bowed his head.

"I am sorry, Miss Wellington!" His voice was broken and sincerely so. "I misunderstood!" He sank to one knee and seized the bottom of her skirt.

"Don't, Prince Koltsoff, please!" Anne was swiftly relenting. She drew her skirt away and the Prince arising took her hand.

"Ah, please!" she said.

"Not until I hear you are not angry."

"I am not angry."

He had drawn her close to him and they were looking into each other's eyes.

"What is it?" she asked weakly. Her very personality seemed ebbing from her.

"You love me?" His voice was almost a whisper.

She smiled wanly.

"Is this love?"

"Is it! What is love? Love is giving—yielding. Love knows neither country nor patriotism nor religion!" His glittering eyes were still holding hers. "And so," his voice was low but masterful, "I ask you—not that I care vitally for the answer of itself; you must know, must understand my motives—I ask you, did the D'Estang discharge a torpedo to-night?"

Long they looked at each other and then slowly the girl shook her head.

"You mean no? She did not?" Koltsoff's voice was eager, his arms tightened about her.

"I do not mean anything."

Then suddenly she twisted out of his arms and stood with white face and parted lips, pointing to the stairway.

"Now," she cried, "go! Go, I tell you," she stamped her foot as Koltsoff hesitated. "Go, or I shall hate you!"



CHAPTER XIX

AN ENCOUNTER IN THE DARK

While Anne was detained below by Koltsoff, Sara had gone to her room. She lay awake for a long time and when her maid informed her that Emilia was still waiting for her mistress, she gave up the idea of seeing her and went to sleep.

Armitage in the meantime had placed the car in the garage, entered the house by the servants' door, and was now sitting in his stocking feet, smoking a pipe, waiting for quiet to fall upon the house. His nerves were still taut with the events of the evening; his mind very much awake and alert. He thrilled with the thought that in all probability he would have a commendatory letter from the Admiral to send to his father and that a duplicate would be published to the fleet. As for his position in the house, that was hourly growing more precarious. So far as he could gather, almost every one but the Prince and the Wellington boys knew his identity, and it certainly could not be long before this ignorant minority would be wiped out. There must be action, and quick action. With the Prince away for the night the opportunity could never be better. He was bent now on taking advantage of it.

It was nearly three o'clock when he left his room, walked along the heavily carpeted hall, and descended the stairs in the front of the house to the second floor. The dim light was flowing from the hall below but no lamps were lighted above. He turned, crouching, and made his way along toward Koltsoff's rooms. Footsteps sounded on the stairs and as he flattened himself against the wall the skirts of a woman fluttered past him. A second later the door of Miss Wellington's rooms opened and in the light rushing forth, he saw Anne enter. She was weeping. He heard the exclamation of the maid and Anne saying something in reply. Then the door closed.

For five minutes Armitage remained immovable. Then taking from his pocket a skeleton key and a long thin roll of wire he crept to Koltsoff's door, which he had marked in the afternoon. As he placed his hand on the knob it turned in his grasp and opened. There was a single electric bulb, burning in a crimson globe, and although Armitage had time to jump back, the light flowing from the open door fell full upon him. He stood breathing quickly, watching the newcomer, his forearm poised along his waist, the fist doubled. Without a word, the man slowly closed the door. As Armitage waited an electric dark-light flashed in his face with blinding suddenness. Then it went out.

"Not now," came a whispered voice, "Prince Koltsoff has returned. He has but gone into his room."

Jack did not reply. His hand shot into his pocket and came out with a dark-light similar to that which had been used against him. As he aimed the instrument and pressed the spring a brown seamed face with a head of heavy dark hair appeared in the centre of the illumination.

"Let us have done with lights; they are not necessary," said the man. The voice was cultivated, the manner gentle. "And besides, they are not safe."

"What do you want?" Armitage's voice rose with an impatient inflection.

"I might ask that of you," was the soft reply. "But come, a fair exchange, you know, since our quarry seems to be the same. Although passing as Prince Koltsoff's secretary, in reality I am Turnecki, of the Austrian State Department. You are of the secret service of this country."

Jack was cautious.

"I am a burglar, if you must know," he said. "And if you make any outcry, I 'll kill you."

"Oh, no you are not," smiled the man, shaking his head.

Without a word Armitage leaned forward and seized the man by the arm.

"Come to my room with me," he said.

There was great dignity in the man's voice as he placed his hand admonishingly upon Jack's arm.

"Don't do that. I am quite ready to go with you."

But Jack's fingers closed more tightly.

"I am glad you feel that way," he said grimly, "because I want to talk to you. However, I think I 'll make sure. Come on."

At the stairs he gently pushed the man ahead of him and followed him to his door. He switched on the light and then, mindful of the watchman on the grounds below, threw a heavy towel over the globe.

"Now, Herr Turnecki, or Koltsoff's secretary, or anything you please to call yourself," he said indicating a chair,—he himself stood at the bureau filling his pipe,—"tell me what I can do for you."

The man bowed, and for a moment they gazed at each other. Armitage could not dismiss an impression of suspicion concerning him, but aside from something familiar in face and figure and in some of the tones of his voice, he was unable to place him. The putative Austrian seemed to read Jack's thoughts.

"Let me first prove," he said at length, "that I am friendly to you—and perhaps to your interests. I recognized you this morning as an American naval officer I had met two years ago in Vienna. It is my business not to forget faces. You must be aware that I have not informed my—" he grimaced—"master of your identity."

"That is true," said Armitage ruefully. "As a detective I appear to be about as much of a success as a farmer at the helm of a battleship."

"Ah, well," observed the other, "it is a business." He looked at Armitage closely. "I admire the United States. Can I be of service?"

"Perhaps," said Armitage, "but you spoke of similar interests. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing, I fear," said the Austrian. "You must know that recently this man Koltsoff purchased, in some way, the mobilization plans of our army on our northeastern, that is, the Russian frontier. Possession of these by Russia will seriously affect the attitude of our chief, Baron Aehrenthal, toward the State Department at St. Petersburg. So close was the espionage, in which I have played no small part, that he was unable to get them out of his hands before his vessel sailed for New York from Fiume. I fear now, however, that such is not the case."

"You mean he has mailed or expressed them?" asked Jack.

The man shook his head.

"Such things are never transmitted in that way."

Jack's heart bounded with relief.

"Well, would n't that be a reason for attempting it?"

"I should be happy to know that the plans were on their way to the post office in St. Petersburg," shrugging his shoulders. "They would soon be on their return journey—and not by mail."

"Oh," cried Armitage, suddenly remembering his conversation with Thornton. "I think I can put you in the way of recovering your stolen plans." Thereupon he told of the capture of Yeasky and of the papers taken from him, already in the keeping of the secret service men in Boston.

As he spoke Turnecki leaned forward, his eyes blazing, uttering subdued German exclamations. When Armitage had concluded he sprang forward and seized Jack by the hand and then after the manner of his country, kissed him on the cheek.

"A thousand thanks!" he cried. "My servitude ends now; for when Koltsoff awakens I shall be en route for Boston. You said that you would send on an order for their delivery."

"Yes, I 'll write that now—and then I 'll tell you what you can do for me. Of course, you understand that the secret service chaps will require the Austrian Consul to vouch for you."

"Oh, I understand that, of course," said the man.

"All right." Armitage took his fountain pen from his coat lying on the bed and leaned across the bureau, about to write, when he abruptly laid the pen down and half closed his eyes. Some new thought seemed filling his mind and moving him deeply.

"Just a second," he said at length. He walked across the room, jerked the towel from the lamp, gazed closely at the man for an instant, and then with an exclamation continued to the door, which he locked, placing the key in his pocket. Returning he stood directly in front of the man, who had arisen.

"Well," he said, "of all fools, commend me! How do you feel, Yeasky, with your beard off and wig on; your German dialect and your painted scar?"

The man looked at Armitage with face utterly expressionless.

"You are mistaken," he said.

"Am I?" sneered Jack. "I have been mistaken so far as you are concerned several times in the past." He laughed grimly. "But not this time, old boy. Come, pass out that control."

"I have n't it."

"You lie. Take off your coat."

Yeasky deliberately divested himself of his coat and threw it at Jack's feet. Then he slapped all his pockets.

"You see," he said, "I have not got it."

"Who has?"

"Koltsoff, I suppose. He did not speak of it to me."

"What did he speak of? What are you here for? You were released upon condition that you leave this country. I suppose you know I can put you in the way of spending several years in an American jail."

"I had intended going, but I received his orders and had to come to him. So I escaped from the steamship, and returned to Newport."

"Did you want to come?"

"No, I am sick of the service. It is all work and danger and no credit. He receives it all."

"Then why did you obey his orders?"

Yeasky raised his shoulders and smiled significantly.

"Siberia," he said. "The arms of such as Koltsoff are very long in cases of those who fail them."

"What did Koltsoff want you here for?"

"To confer with me. He thought we would be safe from spies here. When I saw you I hoped to get an order for the return of the Austrian plans."

"Ump! You nearly succeeded. Did you tell Koltsoff I suspected him?"

"No, that would have made my work appear even more bungling. Listen," added the man earnestly, "I told him I thought my capture had been due to the Austrians, whose system of espionage is really wonderful. That is God's truth," raising his hand solemnly. "I should have believed it myself had I not known you knew."

"If that is true you have done me rather a good turn," said Armitage watching his face closely.

Yeasky drew from his breast a silver ichon.

"It is true." He knelt. "I swear it by this."

"A man's oath is no better than his deeds," replied Armitage musingly. "Look here, Yeasky," he added presently. "I tell you what I am going to do. I am going to turn you over to Chief Roberts of the Newport police and he will hold you for two or three days under an assumed name on the charge of burglary. No one but the watchman and the police and myself will know of your arrest. When I recover the control you will be released, free to stay in this country or go where you please. The only condition is that you attempt in no way to communicate with Koltsoff."

The man bowed his head thoughtfully.

"Besides," resumed Armitage, "I don't know how the secret service people feel about the Austrian plans. I imagine Koltsoff has been making representations to the State Department, and since this Government has no business with them, they may hand them over. If I can help you there, I shall do so. Now," he concluded, "there is the proposition; take it or leave it."

"I'll take it!" replied Yeasky. "As for the Austrian plans, you need not bother about them. You have promised me freedom after two or three days if I keep silent. That is all I ask. Ever since I have been in this country I have been on the point of making up my mind to become a citizen. The Russian Government cannot touch me here, can it?"

"Not unless you have committed a crime."

"I have committed many crimes; none, however, against the Russian Government. I am weary of Koltsoff, weary of this service, weary of this life. There is much money for me here in the practice of my profession."

"You 've already worked in this country, have n't you. Your letter of recommendation from the Eastern Electric—"

"Was forged," said Yeasky quietly. "No, I have never been employed here. I came from Fiume with Prince Koltsoff. I had some thought at the time of deserting; but I was afraid. Now my mind is made up. I want to remain here; I shall remain. I have a brother in Chicago."

"Good," said Armitage. "Come on, now, quickly."

Softly they went down the stairs, and after switching off the burglar alarm, Jack escorted the man out of the servants' door, where he whistled softly. The watchman came up on the run.

"Here's a burglar I caught," said Jack cheerfully. "He was lurking in the second floor hallway."

The watchman, a former New York policeman, was not excited.

"All right," he said. "We 'll take him to the gate house and telephone for the patrol."

This was done and within half an hour the sidelights of the heavy vehicle plunged out of the darkness to the gate.

"Now, don't worry," whispered Armitage, as the man was bundled into the wagon. "I 'll have the chief on the 'phone within five minutes. Remember your part."

Yeasky nodded, and the wagon rumbled away.

It was a very angry chief that Jack, sitting in the butler's hallway, got on the 'phone. But within a few minutes he was laughing and promising to obey Armitage's wishes in every respect.

The clock was striking four when Armitage arose from the telephone. He stood, stretching himself and yawning for a moment, and then stole to the stairs.

"I have spent eventful days before this," he smiled, "but this one breaks all records." As he slipped past the door of Anne's suite, he stopped just an instant.

"Good-night, Anne," he said.



CHAPTER XX

WITH REFERENCE TO THE DOT

Armitage gained next morning a very perfect idea of the regard which the Wellington household held for the head of it. Mr. Wellington had waited in New York for the Mayfair, and not only Anne, but Mrs. Wellington and the boys took their post on the southeastern veranda soon after nine o'clock, while Ronald glued his eyes to the big telescope. After he had alternately picked up a white Lackawanna tug and a Maine-bound steamship as the Mayfair, Anne lost patience.

"Mother," she said, "why not send for McCall? He used to be a sailor, I believe, and will, no doubt, be able to pick up the yacht miles farther away than we can."

Something resembling a smile crossed the mother's face.

"Very well, Anne; send for him."

A footman was summoned and within a few minutes Armitage was the centre of an interested group. He swept the Narragansett shore for a few minutes and then turned to Mrs. Wellington.

"There 's a large white yacht with a yellow funnel, which has a silver band on top, this side of Point Judith," he said. "I can see the red glint of her house flag."

"Why, that's the Mayfair!" cried Anne. "Come on, mother, Sara."

"She won't be up for three-quarters of an hour, Anne," said her mother.

"I don't care. Come, Sara, we 'll raise the flags on the landing ourselves."

As Sara and Anne and the two boys trouped down the path to the cleft in the cliffs, Mrs. Wellington nodded at Jack.

"Quinn reports that you captured a burglar last night, McCall."

Jack smiled.

"Yes, Mrs. Wellington. I caught him in the hall on the second floor. I had him before he could lift a hand and turned him over to the watchman."

"I am indebted to you. What were you doing on the second floor at that hour?"

"I could n't sleep and was smoking in my room when I heard some one pass my door. I went out and saw him flashing a dark lantern below. My shoes were off and I had him before he heard me."

"That was really clever of you. Chief Roberts has informed me that he is a professional, wanted on several other charges. When he sends word I want you to press the charge for me. Of course this will not appear in the newspapers, so please say nothing to any one about it."

As Armitage nodded, she looked at him closely.

"How long do you intend to stay with us, McCall?"

Armitage started.

"Why—I—I—" he paused.

"Oh, no matter. I thought, perhaps, you might be ambitious to join the police force. I think I could help you."

Jack, inwardly raging, flushed and glanced at her uncertainly.

"Thank you," he said, "I 'll consider—I—I 'll let you know."

"Hang her," he said to himself as he walked toward the garage. "Deliver me from an old woman who thinks she has a sense of humor."

Ronald Wellington was a man past fifty, a man whose stature was as large as his mind. He had a shock of gray hair; brilliant hazel eyes like Anne's, but overshadowed by shaggy brows; high cheek bones, and straight lips hidden by a heavy gray mustache. It was said of him that his clothing was only pressed when new and that he purchased a new hat only under the combined pressure of his wife and daughter. He had an immense voice which could be gruff or pleasing, as he willed; in all, a big, strong, wholesome personality, unconventional, but in no sense unrefined. He was in striking contrast to his dapper crony, Robert Marie, who accompanied him from the yacht, a man whose distinction lay in his family, his courtly manners of the old school, and his connoisseurship of wines.

Mrs. Wellington waited on the veranda, but Anne, her brothers, and Sara were at the landing as the gangway of the yacht was lowered. Ronald Wellington seized Anne by the elbows, an old trick of his, and as she stiffened them he lifted her to his face and kissed her. Ronald he slapped on the back, and as for the more sturdy little Royal, he lifted him high in the air and placed him on his shoulder, smiling and nodding pleasantly to Sara. Sara waited for Robert Marie, and thus the party walked to the house. Mrs. Wellington advanced to the rail, smiling, and her husband, setting Royal on the ground, reached up, seized her hands, and drew her face down to his.

"Well, girl," he said, "glad to see me?"

She withdrew her lips and as Sara looked at her, with perhaps a little pathos in her eyes, she saw, spreading over her face that expression, the beauty and charm and inspiration of which are ever the same, in youth and in age, in the countenances of those in whom love still abides unchanging.

They sat on the porch for a few minutes and then, having breakfasted on the Mayfair, Mr. Wellington went to his study off the library, where Mrs. Wellington joined him.

"Well, Ronald," she said, "Prince Koltsoff is here."

"Yes," he said, "so you—and the newspapers have told me. What is he—another Ivan?"

"Not in any way. He and Anne seem to be getting on finely."

Mr. Wellington looked at her.

"My mind was so filled with that Northern Atlantic matter last month when you talked of your prince," he said, "that I don't think I did the question justice. It was too far off—and the railroad mess was so confoundedly near. Now then, let's have it."

"How—what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Wellington, a bit uneasily.

"What have you been trying to do, Belle?"

"Why, I have n't been trying to do anything. The situation has shaped itself without any effort on my part."

"You mean Anne loves the Russian! Bosh! How long has he been here—this is the third day!" The room rang with his laughter.

"I did not say that she loved him. I said they seemed to be getting on."

Mr. Wellington clasped his big hands over his knees and gazed at the floor. "Belle," he said, after a few minutes, "the idea of Anne living away off in a foreign country does n't swallow easily. Life is too short—and, Belle, I don't think you have ever loved Anne quite as I have."

Mrs. Wellington thought for a moment of the adoration which this big man had always held for their daughter—an emotion in no way conflicting with his conjugal devotion and yet equally tremendous, and smiled without a trace of jealousy.

"Yes, I think that is true," she said. "Yet of course you cannot question my love for her. I certainly would be the last to thwart her ambitions."

"Nor I," returned Wellington with a sigh. "And yet, Belle, so far as you are concerned, you don't need such a match. Your position certainly needs no assurance, either here or abroad. We are not in the business of buying foreign titles, you know. We don't have to. Besides, we thrashed all that out when Anne was a child. The girl must marry, of course; for years that has hung over me like a bad dream. But it's natural and right and for the best. But, Belle, since she has grown up and her marriage has become a question of narrowing time—especially since that French nobleman, De Joinville, was buzzing around last year—I have had an ambition for grandchildren that can say 'grandpa' in a language I understand. That is the way I feel about it."

His wife laughed at this characteristic speech and reaching out, patted his hand. He, in turn, seized and held her hand, quite covering it.

"Naturally, Ronald, I feel just as you do about having to purchase foreign titles. But it has pleased me to have the Prince here, in view of the fact that several others wanted him. It's akin to the satisfaction you feel, I imagine, when you suddenly appear before the public as owner of the controlling interest in a competitor's railroad."

"I understand," he replied, and gazed at his wife admiringly. "If I had been as good a railroad man as you are a social diplomat, I should be the only railroad man in the country." He laughed his hearty laugh and then glanced at her seriously. "Well, what about Anne?" he asked.

Mrs. Wellington was about to reply when her secretary entered.

"Prince Koltsoff is in the library waiting to pay his respects," said the young woman. "He seemed a little impatient and I told him I would tell you."

"Oh," said Mr. Wellington, as an expression of annoyance crossed his wife's face, "let him come right in."

As he towered over the Prince, seizing his hand with a grip that made the latter wince, Mrs. Wellington could not help noticing a veiled expression of contempt in the nobleman's face. She was aware that to him, her husband represented, of course, the highest plane of existence that Americans attain to, and she could see that the things in him, the things he stood for and had done, which would impress the average American or perhaps the Englishman, carried no appeal to this Russian. To him, she read, Ronald Wellington, in his great, bagging, ill-fitting clothes, was merely an embodiment of the American pig, whose only title to consideration was the daughter he had to give, and his only warrant of respect, his wealth.

"Sit down, Koltsoff," said her husband heartily, but studying him keenly from under his shaggy brows.

"Thank you," replied the Prince, seating himself luxuriously in a great leather chair. "As you must know, Mr. Wellington," he said, at the same time inclining his head toward Mrs. Wellington, "time presses for men in my sphere of life—the diplomatic; that is why I felt I must speak to you at once."

"Certainly," said Mr. Wellington, glancing at his wife, "fire away."

"Your daughter," began the Prince, "I am deeply interested in her. I—" he stopped and smiled.

Mr. Wellington nodded.

"Go on," he said gruffly, now.

"I—I believe I love her."

"You believe?"

"In fact, I do love her. It is about that I wish to speak to you—as to the dower. Naturally the sum you would propose—"

"Wait just a second. Not so fast," said Mr. Wellington. "Does my daughter love—wish to marry you?"

"I have reason to believe she loves me,"—Koltsoff shrugged his shoulders,—"excellent reasons. As to marriage—of course I have no doubt as to her wishes. But first, I must, of course, reach an understanding with you."

"How do you mean?" asked Mr. Wellington, bending forward and impaling the Prince with his eyes. "Did Anne tell you how much she would be willing to have me pay for you?"

"Certainly not," snapped Koltsoff.

"Well, then, listen, Prince Koltsoff. You are here now as our guest and we hope to make your sojourn quite pleasant. But," he took a cigar from a box, lighted it, and thrust the box across the table to Koltsoff. "But we might as well have a clear understanding. It will be better in every way. I have felt that Americans have been altogether too willing to subscribe to European customs in marrying off their daughters. I am going to establish a new precedent, if I can. Am I clear?"

"What do you mean?" Koltsoff's voice quivered with rising indignation. Mrs. Wellington could not have analyzed her emotions had she tried. All she could do was to sit and watch the tottering of the structure she had reared, under the blows of one who had never before interfered in her plans, but whose word was her law.

"I mean that I am unwilling to pay a single red penny for you, or any one else to marry my daughter. If she 's worth anything, she's worth everything. I 'll inform you, however, that she has some money in her own right—not enough to rehabilitate a run-down European estate, but enough to keep the wolf from the door, and, of course, when I get through with it, she 'll share in my estate, which is not inconsiderable."

"But Prince Koltsoff is a man of wealth," said Mrs. Wellington quietly. "He is not of the broken-down sort."

"Oh, I know all about that," said her husband. "All the more reason why this precedent I am trying to establish should find favor in his eyes."

The Prince rose.

"I understand you to say that you refuse the dower rights which any European must, of course, expect?"

"You do, absolutely. If Anne loves you and wants to marry you, that is her right. She is of age. But no dower. Not a cent."

"And you love your daughter!" Koltsoff's voice was withering.

Mr. Wellington arose quickly.

"That," he said, "we won't discuss."

"Very well," Koltsoff's voice arose almost to a shriek. "But listen, I do love Anne Wellington and I think she loves me. And with dower or without it, I 'll marry her. And—and—" he clutched at his throat, "you have heard me. I have spoken. I say no more." And he slammed out of the room.



CHAPTER XXI

PLAIN SAILOR TALK

Miss Hatch had some inkling of the Prince's intention when she ushered him into the Wellington study, and as she met Sara in the hall on the way out of the library, she held a gloomy countenance.

"Mrs. Van Valkenberg," she said in response to Sara's bright smile of greeting, "please don't think me impertinent, but—will you, if possible, see that the Prince is not alone with Miss Wellington to-day? And—cannot you prod that terribly sluggish McCall?"

Sara looked at the young woman wonderingly for a minute and then held out her hand, laughing.

"Miss Hatch, you 're a jewel."

Sara found Jack near the garage. But she did not have much success with him. He was grumpy and, replying to Sara's assertion that the situation was rapidly becoming rife with disagreeable possibilities, he replied that he did not care a very little bit, and that Anne could marry all the princes in Christendom for all he cared. So Sara, flushing with impatience, told him he was an idiot and that she would like to shake him. The only satisfaction she derived from the incident was that Anne, who came upon them as they were parting, was grumpy, too. Synchronous moods in the two persons whose interests she held so closely to heart was a symptom, she told herself, that gave warrant for hope.

Rimini had turned up with the new car and in it Anne, Sara, Koltsoff, and Robert Marie went to the Casino. Mrs. Wellington drove to market in her carriage. Mr. Wellington remained in his study and among other things had Buffalo on the telephone for half an hour. Armitage spent the morning with the boys and showed them several shifty boxing and wrestling tricks which won Ronald to him quite as effectually as the jiu-jitsu grip had won his younger brother the preceding day.

At luncheon, Anne's peevish mood had not diminished, which, to Sara, would have been a source of joy had she not feared that it was due to the fact that Koltsoff had not been good company all the morning. He was, in truth, quite at his wits' end to account for the behavior of Yeasky, who had been instructed to get into communication with him by ten o'clock, and had failed to do so. Thus Koltsoff, even when with Anne, had been preoccupied and in need of a great deal of entertaining.

Armitage took him to the city after lunch and as usual was instructed to return to The Crags. This gave Jack opportunity to see Chief Roberts and to learn that Yeasky was resting easily and cheerfully, apparently eager to live up to the very letter of his contract.

Anne was in her room when he returned and Sara was with her. Koltsoff came back in a taxicab in a frightful state of mind, bordering on mental disintegration, about four o'clock—just in time to keep an appointment with his host and Marie to drive to the Reading Room. As he crossed the veranda, a French bull pup ran playfully between his feet and nearly tripped him. He kicked at the animal, which fled squealing down the steps.

"Hey, you," cried the peppery Ronald, "that's my dog."

The Prince turned with a half snarl and flung himself into the house.

"The great big Turk!" said Ronald, turning to Armitage. "What does he want here, anyway?"

It was nearly five o'clock when the telephone of the garage rang and Armitage was ordered to bring Anne's car to the house. Her manner was quiet, her voice very low, as she gave him his orders.

"To town by the back road," she said. She stopped at one or two stores along Thames Street and finally settling herself back in her seat, said, "Now you can drive home."

Armitage looked at her for a second.

"Do you mind if I take a roundabout way? I should like to talk to you."

Anne returned his gaze without speaking.

Then she nodded slowly.

"Yes, if you like," she said.

"Thank you."

He drove the car up the steep side streets, across Bellevue Avenue, and then headed into a little lane. Here he stopped. Overhead ash and beech and maple trees formed a continuous arch. Gray stone walls hedged either side. Beyond each line of wall, pleasant orchards stretched away. The sidewalks were velvet grass. Birds of brilliant plumage flashed among the foliage and their twittering cries were the only sounds. Patches of gold sunlight lay under the orchard trees, level rays flowed heavily through the branches and rested on the moss-grown stones.

The pastoral beauty, the great serenity, the utter peace seemed to preclude words. And the spell was immediately upon the two. The down-turned brim of her hat shaded her eyes, but permitted sunlight to lie upon her mouth and chin and to rest where her hair rippled and flowed about her bare neck.

She raised her face—and her eyes, even, level, wondering, sought his. His eyes were the first to fall, but in them she knew what she had read. Now the sunlight had fallen so low that it lay on her like a garment of light—she seemed some daughter of Hesperus, glorified. The waning afternoon had grown cooler and several blue-white clouds went careening overhead. She looked at them.

"How beautiful!" she said. Then she looked at him again with her steady eyes. "You wished to talk, you said."

Jack nodded.

"Yes, I wish to, but I—I don't know exactly how to say it."

She was smiling now. "How may I help you?"

He shook his head doggedly.

"I am a sailor, Miss Wellington."

"You mean I am to hear plain sailor talk?" she quoted. "Good. I am ready."

He began with the expression of a man taking a plunge.

"Miss Wellington, I could say a great deal so far—so far as I am concerned, that I have no right to say, now. . . . But—are you going to marry Prince Koltsoff?"

She started forward and then sank back.

"You must not ask that," she said.

"I know—I understand," he said rapidly, "but—but—you mustn't marry him, you know."

"Must n't!"

"Miss Wellington, I know, it is none of my business. And yet—Don't you know," he added fiercely, "what a girl you are? I know. I have seen! You are radiant, Miss Wellington, in spirit as in face. Any man knowing what Koltsoff is, who could sit back and let you waste yourself on him would be a pup. Thornton, of the Jefferson, has his record. Write to Walker, attache at St. Petersburg, or Cook at Paris, or Miller at London—they will tell you. Why, even in Newport—"

Jack paused in his headlong outburst and then continued more deliberately.

"It is not for me to indict the man. I could not help speaking because you are you. I cannot do any more than warn you. If I transgress, if I am merely a blundering fool—if you are not what I take you for—forget what I have said. Send me away when we return."

She had been listening to him, as in a daze. Now she shook her head.

"I shall not do that," she said. "Did you take employment with us to say what you have said to me?"

"No."

She hesitated a moment.

"I suppose all men of Koltsoff's sort are the same," she said musingly. "I am not quite so innocent as that. We are wont to accept our European noblemen as husbands with no question as to the wild oats, immediately behind them—or without considering too closely the wild oats that are to be strewn—afterwards. Ah, don't start; that is the way we expatriates are educated—no, not that; but these are the lessons we absorb. And so—" she was looking at Armitage with a hard face, "so the things that impressed you so terribly—I appreciate and thank you for your motives in speaking of them—do not appear so awful to me."

Jack, his clean mind in a whirl, was looking at her aghast.

"You—you—Anne Wellington! You don't mean that!"

She flung her hands from her.

"Thank you," she said. "Don't I? Oh, I hate it all!" she cried wildly, "the cross purposings of life; the constant groping—being unable to see clearly—the triumph of lower over higher things—I hate them all. Ah," she turned to Jack pitifully, "promise me for life, in this place of peace, the rest and purity and beauty and love of all this—promise, and I shall stay here now with you, from this minute and never leave it, though Pyramus or King Midas, as you please, beckon from beyond this mossy wall."

"Are you speaking metaphorically?" Jack's voice quivered. "For if you are, I—"

She interrupted, laughing mirthlessly.

"I do not know how I was speaking. Don't bother. I am not worth it. I might have been had I met you sooner—Jack Armitage. For I have learned of you—some things. Don't," she raised her hand as Jack bent forward to speak. "You must n't bother, really. Last night I lived with you a big, clean, thrilling experience and saw strong men doing men's work in the raw, cold, salt air—and I saw a new life. And then—" she was looking straight ahead—"then I was led into a morass where the air was heavy like the tropics, and things all strange, unreal. And why—why now the doubt which of the two I had rather believe to-night. You were too late. I bade you come to us. I am glad, I am proud that I did—for now I know the reason. But—" she smiled wanly at him, "it should have been sooner."

"Is—it—too late?" Jack's mouth was shut tight, the muscles bulging on either side of his jaw.

"Is it? You—I must wait and see. I—I dreamed last night and it was of the sea, men rushing aboard a black battleship, rising and falling on great inky waves. It was good—so good—to dream that; not the other. Wait. . . . It is to be lived out. I am weak. . . . But there is a tide in the affairs of men—and women. Perhaps you—"