“I’m with you both, heart and soul!” said Barres. “The whole country is rotten with Boche intrigue. Who knows what we may uncover at Northbrook?”
Dulcie rose and came over to where Barres sat, and he reached up without turning around, and gave her hand a friendly little squeeze.
She bent over beside him:
“Could I help?” she asked in a low voice.
“You bet, Sweetness! Did you think you were being left out?” And he drew her closer and passed one arm absently around her as he began speaking again to Westmore:
“It seems to me that we ought to stumble on something at Northbrook worth following up, if we go about 225 it circumspectly, Jim—with all that Austrian and German Embassy gang coming and going during the summer, and this picturesque fellow, Murtagh Skeel, being lionised by——”
Dulcie’s sudden start checked him and he looked up at her.
“Murtagh Skeel, the Irish poet and patriot,” he repeated, “who wants to lead a Clan-na-Gael raid into Canada or head a death-battalion to free Ireland. You’ve read about him in the papers, Dulcie?”
“Yes ... I want to talk to you alone——” She blushed and dropped a confused little curtsey to Thessalie: “Would you please pardon my rudeness——”
“You darling!” said Thessalie, blowing her a swift, gay kiss. “Go and talk to your best friend in peace!”