"Outside those pledged to silence, no one."
"Let me see," I murmured, reflectively; "his secretary's name is—?"
"Ling Wen, with, say, twenty odd additions."
"Ling Wen will be sufficient. At seven o'clock to-night, monsieur, you will send an imperative message that you must see Ling Wen at once, and—No, that is all you need do. You will not skate? Then, mon ami, au revoir."
It was ten minutes past seven when my coupé, drew up at the door of L'Imperatrice Hôtel, and I requested to be conducted to the apartments of his Excellency Hun Sun; and I felt pleased with myself, for my much-tried milliner had obliterated volumes of misdeeds with a gown and cloak that were perfection. A shade of perplexity gathered upon the face of the waiter as he heard my request, and that perplexity was deepened in the features of monsieur le manager, when he was called and listened to my desire.
"His Excellency Hun Sun had only just departed."
I had serious thoughts of recommending that man to Monsieur Roché as an uncultivated diplomat.
"And"—he seemed prepared to sink into the ground at the humiliation of disappointing me—"his Excellency's secretary, Ling Wen, had also just been called away."
"It did not matter; I would wait;" and because my own countrymen can refuse a pretty woman nothing, I gained my point, and was conducted by the gentleman himself to the suite of the envoy, to await, as he again so diplomatically put it, "the one who should first return."
There were three rooms—a reception-room, a bedroom, and a study—and I trembled with excitement as I realized that the object of my visit, the stolen seal, was somewhere in those rooms, and in a few minutes I might be passing out of the hotel, and all would be over.