The D. C. glanced at her inquiringly.
"Surely, surely," he muttered, "hum—hum!—" and tried to fix his mind on the letter.
In fact, she was one of those girls who unintentionally and innocently render masculine minds uneasy through some delicate, indefinable attraction which defies analysis.
"Surely," murmured the D. C., "surely! Hum—hum!"
A subtle freshness like the breath of spring in a young orchard seemed to linger about her. She was exquisitely fashioned to trouble men, but she didn't wish to do such a—
Vaux, who was in love with another girl, took another uneasy look at her, sideways, then picked up his unlighted cigar and browsed upon it.
"Yes," he said nervously, "this is one of those accursed code-ciphers. They always route them through to me. Why don't they notify the five—"
"Are you going to turn THIS over to the Postal Inspection Service?"
"What do you think about it, Miss Erith? You see it's one of those hopeless arbitrary ciphers for which there is no earthly solution except by discovering and securing the code book and working it out that way."7
She said calmly, but with heightened colour: