“Can’t you stay?”
“Dad, I have a drawing-room reserved for the midnight tonight, and I am sailing on the Volhynia tomorrow at nine in the morning!”
“God bless me! Why, Jim?”
“Dad, I’ll tell you all I know about it.”
His father sat with brier pipe suspended and keen blue eyes fixed on his son, while the son told everything he knew about the reason for his flying trip to Paris.
“You see how it is, don’t you, dad?” he ended. “The 159 Princess has been a good and loyal friend to me. She has used her influence; I have met, through her, the people I ought to know, and they have given me work to do. I’m in her debt; I’m under real obligation to her. And I’ve got to go, that’s all.”
Old Dick Neeland’s clear eyes of a sportsman continued to study his son’s face.
“Yes, you’ve got to go,” he said. He smoked for a few moments, then: “What the devil does it mean, anyway? Have you any notion, Jim?”
“No, I haven’t. There seems to be some military papers in this box that is mentioned. Evidently they are of value to somebody. Evidently other people have got wind of that fact and desire to obtain them for themselves. It almost seems as though something is brewing over there—trouble of some sort between Germany and some other nation. But I haven’t heard of anything.”
His father continued to smoke for a while, then: