“Because I wanted to walk some of my stiffness off,” I replied coolly. “I had quite a good time, and met an old acquaintance.”
“Who gave you much interesting news?” he asked, with a sardonic inflection of his deep voice that made me guess Yossof had told him what passed at our interview.
“Why, no; I can’t say that he did that,” I confessed. Already I realized that I had learned absolutely nothing from the Jew save the new password, and the fact that he was, or soon would be, in direct communication with Anne.
Mishka gave an approving grunt.
“There are some who might learn discretion from Yossof,” he remarked sententiously.
“Just so. But who is he, anyhow? He might be ‘the wandering Jew’ himself, from the mysterious way he seems to get around the world.”
“Who and what he is? That I cannot tell you, for I do not know, or seek to know, since it is no business of mine. I go to bed; for we must start betimes in the morning.”
Not another word did he speak, beyond a surly “good night;” but, though I followed his example and got into bed, with my revolver laid handily on the bolster as he had placed his, hours passed before sleep came to me. I lay listening to Mishka’s snores,—he was a noisy sleeper,—and thinking of Anne; thinking of that one blissful month in London when I saw her nearly every day.
How vividly I remembered our first meeting, less than five months back, though the events of a lifetime seemed to have occurred since then. It was the evening of my return from South Africa; and I went, of course, to dine at Chelsea, feeling only a mild curiosity to see this old school-fellow of Mary’s, whose praises she sang so enthusiastically.
“She was always the prettiest and smartest girl in the school, but now she’s just the loveliest creature you ever saw,” Mary had declared; and though I wasn’t rude enough to say so, I guessed I was not likely to endorse that verdict.