"I have pledged myself to fulfil a certain task in a certain space of time; the time ends to-morrow morning, and the task is uncompleted. Therefore I shall leave Brussels in the afternoon. Failure is quite as insupportable to me as to those above me. But I should not mind it so much if it were not for two things."
Again he paused, and again she was silent. They were nearing the Rue de la Place now; he knew that a few moments more only remained to him.
"You do not ask what they are," he said, with reproach, "and you will probably add it to my other iniquities if I tell you. Yet, Lady Anstiss, I must tell you."
His manner was strangely eager; she wished that she could feel more annoyed at it than she did.
"One reason is because when I leave Brussels I feel like the moth who goes out into the dark night and who longs to be fluttering his wings still round the light that dazzled him, that would have scorched him if he could have reached it. And the other—may I tell you the other?"
"You have not waited for my permission so far," she answered, half petulantly, half relentingly.
"There is no time to wait," he said; "the other is that I have added to my failure an unnecessary piece of stupidity which I deplore, and which is all the more aggravating because it is not yet irretrievable."
"What do you mean, Mr. Berend?" Her voice sounded softened even to herself; yet she had not quite intended it.
"I mean that it is in your power to do me an inestimable service; to soften my disgrace, and give me, in fact, another chance with the powers that be. I wrote a note—the note of which I spoke to you—to your father, on a private matter; and at the same time I was copying an important and strictly private paper for my chief. An important and strictly private paper is now missing, and the question is, could it by any carelessness have been placed in the envelope directed to Lord Westfaling. If so——" He made an expressive gesture of hopelessness.
"But what can I do?" She looked at him in real astonishment. This strange young man had the faculty of exciting interest, certainly, as well as displeasure.