Her heart was palpitating feverishly and the compression in her throat almost choked her while she fought for outward calm. She was a German girl, she must remember; she had come from her great peril; she had passed it; this was relief and refuge with one of her own before whom, at last, she could freely speak; for—though she dared not yet fully act upon the conviction—she no longer doubted at all that this Wessels was the enemy agent who was to control her henceforth. How much did he know about her, or about the girl she was supposed to be? He knew that she had been ordered here on the thirtieth of last month; he knew that she had at times “used” Gerry Hull.
“We have him now, you know,” Wessels said, watching her with his disagreeable, close scrutiny.
“He’s captured?” Ruth said. She had remembered that she must have no real concern for the fate of an enemy pilot whom she had “used.”
“Dead or captured; anyway, we have him,” Wessels assured. He had continued to speak to her in English, though no one was near them; and if anyone did overhear, the German tongue certainly would arouse no comment in Lucerne. “Mecklen seems to have only half-done your other flame.”
In his conversation at the hotel he had affected the use of slang to display his complete familiarity with English, Ruth had noticed; and she caught his meaning instantly. Her other flame was George Byrne, of course; Mecklen, who had “only half-done” him, must be the German of the ruined house.
“Byrne did not die?” Ruth asked.
“Who’s Byrne?” Wessels returned. “The American infantry lieutenant?”
“Yes.”
“No; he did not die. Mecklen shut his mouth; but any day now it may open. When you did not come, I thought it had.”
“His mouth opened?”