Miss Byrd shook her head. “They were soldiers. What they did they did for their country. That fact glorified their acts. They were not newspaper spies.”
McNew hitched his chair forward. His eyes glowed. “Miss Byrd,” he said, slowly. “In watching the Countess del Ouro Preto you will probably be doing a service to your country scarcely less than that of a spy in a war. You will not be risking death, but you will be risking your social standing, which you would probably lose if it became known that you were a Gazette spy. I have reason to believe that the countess is the channel of communication between the German and the Japanese Ambassadors in a plot to humiliate the United States—perhaps to involve it in war. I want to know the truth; I want to know it in order to get an exclusive story for the Gazette. But I want still more to know it for the sake of the United States. The Monroe doctrine—But Risdon will explain that to you.”
Miss Byrd turned to Risdon while McNew leaned back and watched the changes flit over her delicate face as the younger man talked. A new shade of earnestness, altogether charming, crept over it toward the end.
Risdon went over the situation as he understood it to exist. He told of the petition of the Ouro Pretos to the Emperor and its supposed result; of the rebellion that broke out shortly afterwards in Brazil; of the visit (reported by a Gazette correspondent) of the Countess to Japan; of her return to the United States and of her alleged conferences with the Japanese and German ambassadors; and called attention to the growing excitement in California growing out of the strike and boycott that was being enforced against the Japanese restaurants, and out of the denial of public school privileges to the Japanese in San Francisco.
McNew broke in. “Your sister,” he said, “has sent some incendiary yarns from Brazil—which I have not printed. Yesterday she cabled the worst of all. She’s on her way home now, by the way.”
Nellie’s eyes brightened. “Oh! is she?” she cried. “I’m so glad. I didn’t know.”
“Nobody knew. Risdon here didn’t know till he heard me tell you. And it’s just as well to talk about it. It mightn’t do any harm and again it might. She’s coming on the same ship with Ouro Preto!”
“Oh!” Miss Byrd’s tones were significant and not altogether approving.
But McNew settled back in his chair. “Go on, Risdon,” he ordered.
Risdon resumed. “There really isn’t much more to say,” he declared. “Altogether the circumstances are very suspicious. Singly they amount to nothing, together they may amount to a good deal. The countess is a very clever woman, and we believe that she is the mainspring of the plot and is doing some very important work in connection with it in this country, and we want to find out what this work is.”