“So soon—eh? Will you not remain and be my guest at dinner this evening?” urged the other. “Do. You must be tired and want rest.”
“Ah, no. I much regret, M’sieur Pujalet. But I have to be back at my post at the Embassy at once. I travel to Italy direct—just as I came.”
“Of course. You are a diplomat! I clean forgot!” exclaimed the man before him. “Ah! yours must be a most interesting profession! I have several good friends at the foreign Embassies in Paris. But I heard yesterday that trouble seems to be brewing in Europe—another war-cloud, they say.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Waldron, in an instant interested. “I know nothing of it. Who told you?”
Pujalet seemed upon his guard in an instant.
“Oh—er—I—well, somebody here in this café last night was telling us that secret mobilisation orders had been given.”
“Secret mobilisation! Where?”
The Frenchman hesitated and reflected.
“In Austria—I believe,” was his reply. “But, really, I did not take much notice.”
Hubert Waldron held his breath for a few seconds. Was the great secret already out? The political gossip of the cafés was very often correct. “Was the man unknown to you?”