"Where is it, then—the real thing?" he asked.
She smiled.
"If you must know, Jimmy," she confided, dropping her voice, "it's in a little compartment of a silk belt around my waist. It will remain there until I get to Washington, or until Mr. Haskall comes to me."
"Haskall, the Government explosives man?"
Pamela nodded.
"Even he won't get it without Government authority."
"Now, tell me, Pamela," Van Teyl went on—"you're a far-seeing girl—I suppose we should get it in the neck from Germany some day or other, if the Germans won? Why don't you hand the formula over to the British, and give them a chance to get ahead?"
"That's a sensible question, Jimmy, and I'll try to answer it," Pamela promised. "Because when once the shells are made and used, the secret will be gone. I think it very likely that it would enable England to win the war; but, you see, I am an American, not English, and I'm all American. I have been in touch with things pretty closely for some time now, and I see trouble ahead for us before very long. I can't exactly tell you where it's coming from, but I feel it. I want America to have something up her sleeve, that's why."
"You're a great girl, Pamela," her brother declared. "I'm off downtown, feeling a different man. And, Pamela, I haven't said much, but God bless you, and as long as I live I'm going as straight as a die. I've had my lesson."
He bent over her a little clumsily and kissed her. Pamela walked to the door with him.