Edestone who had stood during this went over and took a seat at the Secretary’s side of the table. “It is just as you said it would be,” he observed to the Count with a mocking laugh as he passed him. “You Germans are so thorough.”
The Count made no reply, only stiffening up, if it were possible to give any more of that quality of German militarism to a ramrod in human form.
He stood as if expecting the Secretary to continue, or to hear further from Edestone, but both men sat perfectly still looking at him. The Secretary, as if having delivered his ruling, he was waiting for the case to go on, settled back into his chair, while Edestone, with the look of a lawyer who is perfectly satisfied with the ruling of the court, was grinning at his opponent, toying with both hands with a small bronze paper-weight made in the shape of a ploughshare, recently received from Washington with the compliments of the Secretary of State.
As neither man seemed to have the slightest intention of breaking the silence, after a moment which seemed an age, Count von Hemelstein brought his hand with a snap to a salute.
“My orders are to bring Mr. Edestone with me,” he said, “and if you decline to deliver him to me, Mr. Secretary, I must use force.”
“That I have no power to prevent you from doing,” said Jones. “You are now in the Embassy of a friendly nation, on soil dedicated by His Imperial Majesty to the use of the representative of that nation, whose safety and that of those he may see fit to protect are guaranteed by the most solemn promise that it is possible for one nation to make to another. If His Imperial Majesty intends to break his solemn word, I am as powerless as the lowest peasant in his domain. As to my word of honour as to the safe-keeping of Mr. Lawrence Stuyvesant, you have by your act reduced me to the rank of a simple American citizen, and as such, and not as representing the Ambassador at the Court of Berlin—for after this there can be none—I tell you that I will not give my word to those who do not keep theirs. As to Mr. Edestone, I can simply, for his own sake, advise him to go with you, but not before I tell him that his country will resist with all its power the indignity which His Majesty has seen fit to offer it.”
Lawrence, who had come in during this speech, was standing looking in amazement from one to the other.
Then Edestone rose. “Mr. Secretary,” he said, “I regret to have been the cause of putting you in this most trying position, and before I decide to accompany this officer or detective I must think, so with your permission I will light a cigar.” He walked over to a table and very slowly selected one from a box that was there.
Lawrence, as if he had forgotten something, left the room hurriedly.
Edestone very deliberately took his cigar and very slowly lighted it. He then as slowly walked back to his seat and sat blowing ring after ring, holding all the time the box of matches in his right hand.