She said: "I beg your pardon for detaining you so long on the outside door-step. Since the war began my maid and I have been annoyed by strangers telephoning and even coming here to ask silly and impertinent questions. I suppose," she added, disdainfully, "it is because there is so much suspicion of foreigners in England."
"I quite understand," he said. "Being German, your neighbors gossip."
She shrugged her indifference.
"Shall we talk here?" she asked gravely, resting one very white hand on the back of a chair. "You come from General Baron Kurt von Reiter. The ring is a credential beyond dispute."
"We can talk anywhere you wish," he said, "but there is little time, and somebody must pack a traveller's satchel for you. Have you a maid?"
"She went to London yesterday evening. She was to have returned on the eleven o'clock train last night. I can't understand it."
"Are you alone in the house?"
"Yes. My cook sleeps out. She does not come until half-past nine. My maid serves my breakfast."
"You haven't had any, then?"
"No."