'Why, it is most amusing!' she exclaimed. 'He thinks you a necromancer. He is, I believe, a little afraid of you. And that other man, all through the performance he scarcely took his eyes off you.'
'At any rate,' Lavendale observed, 'it has given me something to think about.'
II
Lavendale found his way to the American Embassy early on the following morning, and interviewed his friend Mr. Washburn.
'Anything from Washington?' he inquired.
'I have only had a formal acknowledgment,' Mr. Washburn replied, 'except that they added a code word they don't often make use of, and which I take to indicate a pat on the back for you.'
'Is it true,' Lavendale continued, dragging a chair up to the side of Mr. Washburn's desk, 'that Berlin has given Washington to understand that unless she changes her attitude toward the Allies and withdraws her objection to submarine warfare, she will no longer respect the Monroe Doctrine?'
'Pourparlers to that effect,' Mr. Washburn confessed, 'have passed. How did you come to hear of them?'
Lavendale smiled a little grimly, yet with some self-satisfaction.
'I am getting on the track of something else which promises to be even more interesting,' he went on. 'Tell me, how do we stand with Japan just now?'