"Ah!" He smiled with delight, nodded his head approvingly, and spread out his long fingers, as though he warmed them at a fire.
I took new courage to my heart.
"Hun Sun delivered it to Monsieur Roché, and the instant after purloined it and rendered his mission futile. Hun Sun was in the pay of Russia."
"Ss's the dog!" Ling Wen hissed; "I always suspected it. The dog!"
"But you, Ling Wen, will make amends for the deed of this traitor?"
"Gladly," he cried; "the neutrality is broken." He bent over, took the seal in his fingers, and I extended my hand to receive it.
"You are as clever as you are beautiful," he said, "and deserve to succeed, but unfortunately you cannot."
He dropped the seal into the open pocket of his loose silk robe.
"What do you mean?" I cried, starting in passionate amazement from my seat.
"You have much to learn, madame, before you become a skilled diplomat; you are too trustful, too confiding, and, as others of your lovely sex, you talk too much. I, too, am in the pay of Russia."