"Yes," I said limply. "I suppose it is!"
For a minute her eyes encountered mine, and in them I read her reproach. She dropped them almost at once and a sort of embarrassment silenced us. Then it suddenly occurred to me that she and I were alone; I wondered to find that neither the prospect of spending the night, maybe several nights, in the company of a man of whom she knew next to nothing, nor the danger to which she was exposed, had shaken her out of her serenity. This girl was full of character. My wish, that poor man's wish which I had hardly dared to admit to myself on board the Naomi, rose to my mind with such force that I felt the blood mount to my face.
But Marjorie took my hand and patted it as she might have patted a child's.
"Tell me about your mission!" she said.
I kept her hand and seated at her side in the shade of that ancient pillar, with the fresh breeze caressing our faces, I told her how Fate had put into my hands the message left by Ulrich von Hagel for Clubfoot and his gang. I described to her my efforts to unravel the cipher which I repeated to her.
"How does it go in German?" she asked; for I had given her the English version.
"You know German?" said I.
She nodded.
"I used to have a German Fräulein," she answered. "She was a dear old thing and as a small girl I often went over to Boppard to stay with her people. I knew German rather well."
"Well," said I, "here goes!"