"But be more definite," she persisted. "Where should we start? You are over here now on some important mission. Tell me more about it?"
"I cannot just yet," he answered. "All that I can promise you is that, if I am successful, it will stop the war just as surely as Captain Graham's new explosive."
"I thought you were going to make a confidante of me," she complained.
He suddenly gripped her arm. It was the first time he had touched her, and she felt a queer surging of the blood to her head, a sudden and almost uncontrollable repulsion. The touch of his long fingers was like flame; his eyes, behind their sheltering spectacles, glowed in a curious, disconcerting fashion.
"To the woman who was my pledged wife," he said, "I would tell everything. From the woman who gave me her hand and became my ally I would have no secrets. Come, I have a message, more than a message, to the American people. I am taking it to Washington before many hours have passed. If it is your will, it should be you to whom I will deliver it."
Pamela walked on with her head in the air. Fischer was leaning a little towards her. Every now and then his mouth twitched slightly. His eyes seemed to be seeking to reach the back of her brain.
"Please go now," she begged. "I can't think clearly while you are here, and I want to make up my mind. I will send to you when I am ready."
CHAPTER XVII
Pamela sat that afternoon on the balcony of the country club at Baltusrol and approved of her surroundings. Below her stretched a pleasant vista of rolling greensward, dotted here and there with the figures of the golfers. Beyond, the misty blue background of rising hills.
"I can't tell you how peaceful this all seems, Jimmy," she said to her brother, who had brought her out in his automobile. "One doesn't notice the air of strain over on the Continent, because it's the same everywhere, but it gets a little on one's nerves, all the same. I positively love it here."