“Nothing definite, yet everything taken together looks damaging enough. Here is a young German of military age and appearance, who arrived from Sweden just before we went into the war. He has plenty of money and spends his time idling about New York, in frequent communication with at least one navy officer. He selects a home overlooking the river from which our soldiers are departing for France. You yourself saw him pursuing K-19—the other K-19—who a few hours afterward was found murdered.”
“Things don’t look right,” Jane agreed, yet a few hours later as she sat opposite the young man at tea, she found herself doubting. It seemed incredible, impossible, that Frederic Hoff could be a murderer. Her instinctive sense of justice forced her to admit that it was hard for her to believe him even a spy. He seemed so cultured, so clean, so straightforward, so nice. If she had not seen that unforgettable look of hate on his face that night as she watched him from the window she could not, she would not have believed evil of him.
The tremor of nervous excitement in which she met him quickly passed, and she found herself once more chatting intimately with him and enjoying it. He talked well on practically all subjects, showing reserve only when she tried to draw him out about himself. Her previous experiences with the opposite sex had taught her that most men’s favorite topic of conversation is themselves, but Mr. Hoff appeared to be the exception. Adroitly he baffled all her efforts to get him to discuss his family, his achievements, or his past, even when she sought to encourage intimacy by telling about her brother who was abroad in Pershing’s army.
“You must let me be your big brother while he is away,” her escort had suggested gallantly.
“All right, brother,” she had challenged him. “I’ll take you on at once. I have seats for a matinée to-morrow. I’d much rather go with a brother than with one of the girls.”
“I would be delighted,” he answered unsuspectingly, “but unfortunately I have an engagement that takes me out of town.”
“We’ll go next week, then—Wednesday.”
“A week is too long to wait. Let me take you to a matinée on Saturday.”
Jane hesitated. At times her conscience troubled her not a little. While satisfied that the importance of her trust wholly justified her actions, she disliked any deception of her family.
“Wouldn’t it be better,” she parried, “if you came to call on me some evening first? You’ve only just met my mother, and I would like you to know Dad, too.”