On Friday afternoon she called for the last time at the passport-office to get a letter of introduction that Mr. Mathers had insisted on writing for her to a friend of his in the American Tobacco Company at Cavalla.
"You're not likely to go there," he said, "but if you do, it may be useful."
The clerk handed her the letter, and there was something magnificently protective in the accompanying gesture; he might have been handing her a personal letter to the Prime Minister and giving her an assurance that the Foreign Secretary would personally meet her at Waterloo and see that she did not get into the wrong tube.
When Sylvia was leaving the office, Maud Moffat came in, at the sight of whom Mr. Mathers's spectacled benevolence turned to an aspect of hate for the whole of humanity.
"It's too late, madam, to-day. Nothing can be done until further inquiries have been made," he said, sharply.
"Too late be damned!" Maud shouted. "I'm not going to be —— about any longer. My passport's been stolen and I want another. I'm an honest English girl who's been earning her living on the Continent and I want to go home and see my poor old mother. Perhaps you'll say next that I'm not English?"
"Nobody says that you're not English," Mr. Mathers replied through set teeth. "And please control your language."
At this moment Maud recognized Sylvia.
"Oh, you've come back, have you? I suppose you didn't have any difficulty with your passport. Oh no, people as frequents the company of German spies can get passports for nothing, but me who's traveled for seven years on the Continent without ever having any one give me so much as a funny look, me, I repeat, gets cross-examined and messed about as if I was a murderer instead of an artiste. Yes, war's a fine thing for some people," she went on. "Young fellows that ought to be fighting for their country instead of bullying poor girls from the other side of a table thoroughly enjoys theirselves. Nice thing when an honest English girl—and not a German spy—can't mislay her passport without being—"
"I must repeat, madam," Mr. Mathers interrupted, "that the circumstances have to be gone into."