"Circumstances? I'm in very good circumstances, thank you. But I sha'n't be if you keep me mucking about in Bucharest so as I forfeit my engagement at the White Tower, Saloniker. You'll look very funny, Mr. Nosey Parker, when my friend the Major who I know in Egypt and still writes to me lodges a complaint about your conduct. Why don't you ask this young lady about me? She knows I'm English."
"I keep telling you that nobody questions your nationality."
"Well, you've asked me enough questions. You know the size of my corsets and the color of my chemise and how many moles I've got, and whether my grandmother was married, and if it's true my uncle Bill ran away to Africa because he couldn't stand my aunt Jane's voice. Nationality! I reckon you couldn't think of any more questions, unless you became a medical student and started on my inside. Why don't you tell him you know all about me?" she added, turning to Sylvia.
"Because I don't," Sylvia replied, coldly.
"Well, there's a brazen-faced bitch!" Miss Moffat gasped.
Sylvia said good-by hurriedly to Mr. Mathers and left him to Maud. When she was in the train on the way to Rustchuk, it suddenly struck her that Zozo might be able to explain the missing passport.
CHAPTER VI
THE more Sylvia pondered the coincidence of Queenie's flight with the loss of Maud's passport the more positive she became that Zozo had committed the theft. And with what object? It seemed unlikely that the passport could be altered plausibly enough to be accepted as Queenie's own property in these days when so much attention was being given to passports and their reputed owners. Probably he had only used it as a bait with which to lure her in the first instance; he would have known that she could not read and might have counted upon the lion and the unicorn to impress her with his ability to do something for her that Sylvia had failed to do. Queenie must have been in a state of discouragement through her not having come back to Avereshti on the Sunday evening, as she had promised. The telegram she sent had really been a mistake, because Queenie would never have asked any one in the hotel to read it for her, and Zozo would assuredly have pretended whatever suited his purpose if by chance it had been shown to him.
At first Sylvia had been regretting that she had not divined sooner the explanation of Maud's missing passport, so that she could have warned Mr. Mathers; but now she was glad, because whatever Queenie did, the blame must be shared by herself and the British regulations. She reproached herself for the attitude she had taken toward Queenie's disappearance; she had done nothing in these days at Bucharest to help the poor child, not even so much as to find out where she had gone. If Zozo were indeed a German agent, what might not be the result of that callousness? Yet, after all, he might not be anything of the kind; he might merely have been roused by her own opposition to regain possession of Queenie. Really it was difficult to say which explanation was more galling to her own conscience. However, it was useless to do anything now; there was as little probability of Queenie's being still in Bucharest as of her being anywhere else. If Zozo were in German pay he would find it easy enough to secure Queenie's entrance into a neutral country; and if he were once more enamoured of his power over her, he would certainly have taken precautions against any new intervention by herself.
Late in the afternoon of Saturday, the 3d of October, Sylvia arrived at Giurgiu, the last station in Rumania before crossing the Danube to enter Bulgaria. It had been a slow journey, owing to the congestion of traffic caused by the concentration of Rumanian troops upon the frontier. When she was leaving the station to take the ferry she caught sight of Philidor upon the platform.