He drummed upon the surface of his desk again. His thoughts at that moment were none too pleasant.
"Well, what are your terms?" came at length from him.
She was aware that she was mistress of the situation, and she enjoyed the position.
"I wish to choose the man with whom I am to work," she began. "I am not to be spied upon by your agents; in fact, the first indication of any sort of surveillance will end our contract. The man I choose will not be permitted to communicate with you, or with anyone, until we have finished. He must obey me implicitly. If you agree to my terms, I shall name a meeting-place, and from the instant this man enters the house he is mine; he disappears from your observation completely until I give him back to the Raj. Meanwhile, you will follow up the clues you have; you will forget me, you will forget the man who is to help me—and at the end of four months I will keep my pledge."
Sir Francis concealed his thoughts under a smile, and well he did.
"You ask the impossible. Why, that's preposterous!"
"You question my loyalty?"
A spark showed in the violet eyes—steel under the velvet.
"Your loyalty is not involved in this discussion; it is simply that you ask things that are unprecedented in the service."
"The happenings of June fourteenth are without precedent," she returned swiftly. "Come, Sir Francis, what are you losing in this venture? On the contrary, you gain much. I want no credit; when I have finished I vanish from the affair, completely. One of the stipulations is that my name must not be mentioned in connection with the work. Simply, your curiosity is piqued. And your masculine vanity suffers at the thought that a woman can do what you, with your hundreds of eyes, can not. Be reasonable. I give my word, a word that you have reason to know is always kept, that your man shall come to no harm. You do not question my loyalty, you say; then what reason for refusal have you? Simply that in the stale, musty annals of your Department such a thing has never been done!"