“I’ve missed my greatest,” Marston replied instantly. “Oh—it was out of my class, so I never started.”
“It may have been a mistake, my friend,” she observed; “one never can tell until he’s tried it—and failed. I mightn’t have missed had I gone on another schedule. However, the past is to profit by, and to forget if we can’t remember it pleasantly. So let us return to the business in hand, Marston; it’s a rattling business and a fascinating, and at it you and I are not to be altogether despised,” throwing him a bewitching smile.
“Don’t!” he exclaimed. “I’m not stone.”
“Forgive me, my friend!” putting out her hand to him.
Marston simply bowed, “I think it wiser to refrain,” he said gently, and bowed again. “By all means let us to the business in hand.”
He understood her nature better than she thought. The sympathy in her was, for the moment, real enough, but it was only for the moment; the love of admiration was the controlling note—what she sought and what she played for. She felt the sympathy while it lasted, but it was the effect as to herself, the selfish effect, that inspired the sensation. When a beautiful woman stoops to sympathy, it is rare indeed that she does not thereby arouse admiration for herself. Madeline Spencer may have been cold and shrewd and selfish and calculating, yet with it all she was warm-hearted; but the warm heart never got away with the cool head—unless it was with that head’s permission and for its benefit. She played men—and men played her—but the man that had won was not yet to be found. Two only of those whom she tried had failed to succumb to her fascinating alluringness—and these two she had loved, and still did both love and hate.
“Returning then to the code-book and the letter,” said she. “How about the latter; have you found Carpenter susceptible to persuasion?”
“To persuasion, no; to exchange, yes. Our agreement is that if I provide the key-word, he will provide the letter in question. At ten o’clock this morning the trick is to be turned.”
“And if the translation concerns the United States, he simply would turn the key upon you and hold you prisoner until the matter is cleared up.”
“One must take some risks,” Marston observed.