“Really?” Miss Byrd’s eyes danced. “Really? That’s fine! May I use it? My story isn’t printed yet and I can change it by cable.”
“You may say he has seen them and is considering the matter if you like, but I wouldn’t say outright that he has granted their request. I don’t know that he has. If he has it was probably on conditions. What I want to know is what those conditions were.”
The girl’s expression changed instantly. She drew her breath quickly. Rutile’s tones hinted a story, and a “story” had come to be the great thing in her life as it is in every newspaper writer’s.
“You want to know?” she echoed. “Officially or not officially? As United States representative or as an individual?”
“Both! Brazil has a large German population; and any dealings between the Kaiser and Brazilians are of interest to the United States. It’s a pretty big thing Ouro Preto has asked, and if the Kaiser does it, the United States would like to know why. That’s official! But there’s the unofficial side of it. I have a friend who is here for a day or two—a navy officer named Topham.”
“Oh!” Miss Byrd started. “I know him,” she added, after an instant’s hesitation.
“Really?” Very plainly Rutile was taken aback. He took a moment to consider. “If I had known that you knew him,” he went on, at last, “I think I should not have broached the subject; and yet, after all, I think I am justified. I should not be a real friend if I did not try to help him—and he needs help. You will understand, of course, that what I am going to say is confidential.”
“Certainly.”
“Topham got here yesterday morning. It seems that he crossed from New York with the countess, who had slipped away from Berlin without anyone being the wiser. Topham left her at Hamburg. But yesterday morning he saw her on the street, and was much stirred up. In the afternoon he called on her. Now, not an hour ago, just before he started for his train, he tells me that she has promised to marry him. Isn’t it the most preposterous—”
“Not at all! Not at all! It’s splendid! Splendid! Just the sort of thing Walter Topham would do. It’s traditional with his family. Everybody in Virginia knows what the Tophams are. They have run off with their wives—or with other men’s—for three hundred years. They are slow and careful in most things, but when they fall in love—really in love—they sweep everything before them. Oh! I know them! I told Walter last night that I knew he was in love.”