He looked at me with flashing eyes. 'I thought you knew me better than that,' he said. 'No, I am going to fight for her, fight to the very last. But if she will not have me as I am,—if she will not have me without my father's money, which I will not take, then—then——'
'You'll see her marry Springfield? I say, Jack, you know all we have thought and said about Springfield?'
'I have something to tell you about Springfield,' he said quietly.
CHAPTER XXXVII
MAURICE ST. MABYN
'You don't know Maurice St. Mabyn, do you?'
I shook my head.
'Spent all his life soldiering in the East, and knows more about Eastern affairs than any living man. Yes, I mean it. He knows any amount of Eastern dialects; speaks Arabic and Turkish like a native, and has a regular passion for mixing himself up in Eastern matters. He can pass himself off as a Fakir, a Dervish—anything you like. He knows the byways of Eastern cities and Eastern life better than any man I know of, and obtained a great reputation in certain official quarters for discovering plots inimical to British interests. That's Maurice St. Mabyn. A jolly chap, you understand, as straight as a die, and as fearless as a lion. A diplomatist too. He can be as secret as an oyster, and as stealthy as a sleuth-hound. He has been used more than once on delicate jobs.'
'But—but——' I interjected.
'In the July of 1914,' he went on without noticing my interruption, 'I was sitting alone in my show in Bizna where I was then stationed, when who should come in but Maurice. He looked as I thought a bit anxious and out of sorts. I hadn't seen him for more than a year, and he startled me.