"The loss of the Neptune? In what way can the honour of a naval family be possibly involved in such a matter?" There was a touch of hauteur as well as of indignant surprise in the fine old seaman's voice.
"Admiral," said Jacques de Wissant deliberately, "there was—there is—a woman on board the Neptune."
"A woman in the Neptune? That is quite impossible!" The Admiral got up from his chair. "It is one of our strictest regulations that no stranger be taken on board a submarine without a special permit from the Minister of Marine, countersigned by an admiral. No such permit has been issued for many months. In no case would a woman be allowed on board. Commander Dupré is far too conscientious, too loyal, an officer to break such a regulation."
"Commander Dupré," said Jacques de Wissant in a low, bitter tone, "was not too conscientious or too loyal an officer to break that regulation, for there is, I repeat it, a woman in the Neptune."
The Admiral sat down again. "But this is serious—very serious," he muttered.
He was thinking of the effect, not only at home but abroad, of such a breach of discipline.
He shook his head with a pained, angry gesture—"I understand what happened," he said at last. "The woman was of course poor Dupré's"—and then something in Jacques de Wissant's pallid face made him substitute, for the plain word he meant to have used, a softer, kindlier phrase—"poor Dupré's bonne amie," he said.
"I am advised not," said Jacques de Wissant shortly. "I am told that the person in question is a young lady."
"Do you mean an unmarried girl?" asked the Admiral. There was great curiosity and sincere relief in his voice.
"I beg of you not to ask me, Admiral! The family of the lady have implored me to reveal as little of the truth as possible. They have taken their own measures, and they are good measures, to account for her—her disappearance." The unhappy man spoke with considerable agitation.