"I suppose so, until somebody comes after her to take her back."
"Suppose nobody comes?" suggested Halkett mischievously.
"Well, I'm not going to adopt her, that's certain," insisted the other. "Poor little thing!" he added. "—Her instincts seem to be decent. Who could blame a young girl for sickening of such a life and cutting away on her own hook? That's a rotten joint, that Cabaret de Biribi. And as for that old villain, Wildresse, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he were playing the dirty game from both ends—German and French. Informers are often traitors."
"Very frequently."
"Spies also have that reputation, I believe—except in romantic fiction," said Warner.
"They usually deserve it," returned Halkett. "Generally speaking, they are a scum recruited from low pubs and brothels. Rarely does any reputable person enter that profession except in line of military duty or in time of war.
"Servants, waiters, chauffeurs, those are the most respectable classes of secret agents. But the demi-monde and their hangers-on furnish the majority of those popularly supposed to represent people of position who play the rôle of international spy. They are a rummy lot, Warner.
"It is very, very seldom in Occidental drawing-rooms that such practices prevail. A woman of position very rarely becomes a paid agent of that sort. Diplomats and attachés who are pumped and victimized are usually the dupes of socially disreputable people. Society in England and in Western Europe rarely entertains such a favorite of fiction as a paid Government spy; nor are such people very often recruited from its ranks. East of the Danube it is different."
They sat for a while smoking, Halkett lavishing endearments upon Ariadne who never failed to respond, Warner musing on what Halkett had said and wondering exactly what duties the Military Intelligence Department of any Government might include.
No doubt, like the Government, it employs spies, and, like the Government, never admits the fact.