“Often!” Miss Byrd giggled. “I called this morning on the high well-geborn field marshal Sweinpeltz and I felt that way the minute I saw him. And it came true within ten seconds. My! You should have heard him swear.”
“Swear?”
“Well, ‘Mein Gott’ is swearing, isn’t it? He said that three times the first question I asked him. Seriously, though, Mr. Rutile, I hope I shall see you again. Just now, I’m bound for Brazil, as you know. Any little commission I can execute for you in Buenos Ayres or Pernambuco or anywhere?”
Rutile moved a little restlessly in his chair. His eyes avoided those of the girl. “Well, yes!” he said. “There is something, but I hardly know how to ask you. It is a little—awkward.”
Miss Byrd shrugged her shoulders. “Why should it be?” she asked, “You have thought it? If you have thought it of me, it must be perfectly proper. Therefore, put it into words just as you thought it? I permit you.”
“Thank you! I’ll take you at your word.”
Rutile considered for a moment. Clearly he was marshalling his ideas. Miss Byrd’s newspaper training, brief as it had been, had taught her the advisability of letting her victims have all the rope they wanted. Rutile was not a victim, but the principle was the same. So she waited in silence.
“There are two young Brazilians here,” he began at last, “Who came to Berlin some weeks ago on a peculiar errand. They are the Count of Ouro Preto and his sister. Perhaps you know of them?”
Miss Byrd nodded. “Certainly I do. I wrote them up in my best style a week ago. Haughty grand duke. Fascinating ballet girl. Beautiful daughter. Dashing piratical adventurer. Mad love. Flight. Adventurer becomes governor and accumulates enormous wealth. Children seek rehabilitation of ballet girl. Prove that she was descended from Noah’s ark. Haughty Wilhelm refuses even to see ’em. America demands in thunder tones why he doesn’t grant her panatella children their rights. Hip! Hip! Hurrah! Anything the matter with that?”
“Nothing!” Rutile shrugged his shoulders slightly, but laughed admiringly as he did so. “Nothing much, that is, only the essential detail that Wilhelm has seen them and seems to have promised to give them what they ask.”