"I fear so," assented King, shaking his head.
"Nonsense!" said Betty. "It's as good a treasure story as I ever read. Why shouldn't it be true? Could you imagine a more perfect place for concealing a treasure all these centuries than Constantinople?"
"Your father will tell you," retorted Hugh scornfully, "that there is not a famous ruin in the Near East but is declared to contain a treasure of one kind or another."
"True—only too true!" agreed King.
"The sole use of the legend so far," continued Hugh unhappily, "has been to give Uncle James something to do. It must be a godsend to Curzon in managing the House, for during the war while Uncle James was shut up in England he was continually moving for the appointment of committees to preserve the monumental brasses of country churches and appealing to the government to recognize that England owed a duty to civilization in retaining and Christianizing Constantinople—so he could dig to his heart's content for the treasure."
"Well, I for one intend to believe in it," stated Betty, "and if your uncle wants any help in hunting for it, he can count on me."
"We'll all help him, if it comes to that," I said. "Nikka Zaranko would never forgive us if we left him out of such a party."
"Uncle James will have nothing tangible to go on," said Hugh. "You can stake your last shilling on that. He's never had a sane idea yet."
"I take it, then," remarked Betty, rising with a detached air, "that you have no desire to go to Constantinople."
Betty is slim, with brown hair and eyes and a face that you have to look at and when she sets her head back— But of course I am only her cousin. Hugh jumped up, nervously crunching the cable in his hand.