“Where's Mowbray?”
Dabnitz came close and looked at the other sorrowfully.
“How long have you known Mr. Mowbray?”
Boylan tried to think. His faculties were at large. According to facts he had known Peter (and not at all intimately) during a mere ten weeks before the column left Warsaw. Facts, however, hadn't anything to do with the reality. Peter Mowbray was his own property. He said as much, his voice going back on him.
“Mr. Boylan, I have seldom been more hard hit. He was my friend, too. A more charming and accomplished young American would be hard to find, but we who are out for service, a life and death matter for our country, must not let these things enter. Mr. Mowbray is affiliated in various ways with our enemies—not the Austrians, but enemies more subtle and insidious.”
“For God's sake—Dabnitz!”
“I thought it would hurt you.”
“You might just as well say it of me.”
“Not at all. Your record stands. It was well known to us when you were accepted to accompany our column. You will recall that it was your estimate of Mr. Mowbray's superior that decided us to accept the younger man—”
“I have been with Mowbray night and day. He is a newspaper man, brain and soul—one of the coolest and most effective I have ever met. He has been for years in Paris and Berlin, before Warsaw.”